I think China will create an AI bubble, currently studying in Beijing and all EE and CS students I know focus all their time at either stats, ML or data mining. While I think China might have a big shot at the AI race, I don't think it's useful to have to only focus on AI because it's hot right now, they may lack progress in other fundamental fields that may lead to more important breakthrough and technological change.
It's not just China. At my German university all courses related to AI/ML/data mining/stats are oversubscribed by a factor of 2 to 5. One professor went so far as to stress that he didn't have any experience with deep learning and he'd only cover Bayesian statistics in order to discourage students. I don't think it worked.
I'm pretty sure that there's a similar surge of interest in all countries.
We’ve been here before with Japan in the 80s, and it led to an extended 2nd AI winter.
China’s efforts are much larger than Japan’s were, and they have a bigger housing bubble to go along with that to boot. It is interesting to see how history repeats itself.
I assume that cheap flying drones are the weapons of the future, not just in military but police too. Small drones everywhere of all kinds. The drones would at least be semi-autonomous as having a human behind every single drone sounds expensive at scale.
When Chinese leaders start talking about not being reliant on Western technology, rightly or wrongly, I immediately start thinking about their previous industrial espionage campaigns to remove the reliance on Western aerospace technology. [1]
I'd be a lot more relaxed about these sorts of announcements if the Chinese government took steps to curb Red Army cyber-attacks.
Wow. Not just about AI - he's consistently insightful in that conversation, and demonstrates a systems-level mindset that one might even describe as hacker-esque...
"Part of what makes us human are the kinks. They’re the mutations, the outliers, the flaws that create art or the new invention, right? We have to assume that if a system is perfect, then it’s static. And part of what makes us who we are, and part of what makes us alive, is that we’re dynamic and we’re surprised."
Original post title: AI in China: Xi Jinping and 25-member policymaking body Politburo have a “group study” session about AI
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Xi said China must develop its own AI technology, saying it was important for economic development, social progress and global geopolitics.
“AI is a vital driving force for a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, and accelerating AI development is a strategic issue to decide whether we can grasp opportunities,” Xi was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
Xi said China must ensure that it “occupies the high ground of AI core technology” and could firmly keep the technology in its hands by leveraging “China’s massive data and huge market potential”.
He said the country should use AI to upgrade its manufacturing, adding that it could be used in China’s pursuit of a leaner and greener way of economic development.
Xi also encouraged government agencies to adopt AI.
“We need to enhance the combination of AI and social governance and develop AI systems for government services and decision-making,” Xi said, adding that public security was one field in which it could be used “in depth”.
Smart decision from China perspective, they can't be reliant on something potentially so crucial with western technologies.
But I can't help but think how it will be used for monitoring of lives of everybody. You do one misstep, government will know about it. Effectively no privacy. Compared to what it may be (and probably will), current state of China is a hippie paradise.
It is already a bubble. The number of no-nonsense applications (classification problems) is actually quite limited and depends on the quality of available datasets. Andrew Ng used to stress this in his courses.
To apply machine learning techniques successfully the phenomena in question should be, ideally, discrete, fully-observable, deterministic (very precise terminology from classic AI). Mere tweaking of parameters on nonsensical or too abstract data will lead nowhere.
Outside of academia ML already is an astrology with numbers instead of planets and stars.
[+] [-] klrr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yorwba|7 years ago|reply
I'm pretty sure that there's a similar surge of interest in all countries.
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|7 years ago|reply
China’s efforts are much larger than Japan’s were, and they have a bigger housing bubble to go along with that to boot. It is interesting to see how history repeats itself.
[+] [-] gaius|7 years ago|reply
Yes everyone wants to mine the data, but noone wants to generate or gather new original data in the first place.
[+] [-] jobigoud|7 years ago|reply
Well if they crack general intelligence maybe they can generate, copy and paste researchers in those other fundamental fields.
[+] [-] baybal2|7 years ago|reply
Does anybody remember the 5th gen computing stuff from 30 years ago?
[+] [-] wycs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hanchinese|7 years ago|reply
I quickly checked zhihu.com's hot topics related to CS, zhihu.com can be regarded as the Chinese counterpart of quora.com
the topic AI has 1.34m followers https://www.zhihu.com/topic/19551275/hot
the topic e-commerce has 1.14m followers https://www.zhihu.com/topic/19550780/hot
the topic database has 0.8m followers https://www.zhihu.com/topic/19552067/hot
[+] [-] skrebbel|7 years ago|reply
Other people worry about climate change. Some religious nutcases worry about paperclip maximizers and basilisks. I worry about Robocop.
[+] [-] threatofrain|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swarnie_|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fleshfly|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Lio|7 years ago|reply
I'd be a lot more relaxed about these sorts of announcements if the Chinese government took steps to curb Red Army cyber-attacks.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/31/us-charges-10-ch...
[+] [-] gman83|7 years ago|reply
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-in...
[+] [-] dTal|7 years ago|reply
"Part of what makes us human are the kinks. They’re the mutations, the outliers, the flaws that create art or the new invention, right? We have to assume that if a system is perfect, then it’s static. And part of what makes us who we are, and part of what makes us alive, is that we’re dynamic and we’re surprised."
Hell of a quote.
[+] [-] singularity2001|7 years ago|reply
I miss this guy and his connectedness with our culture.
[+] [-] techsocial|7 years ago|reply
.
Xi said China must develop its own AI technology, saying it was important for economic development, social progress and global geopolitics.
“AI is a vital driving force for a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, and accelerating AI development is a strategic issue to decide whether we can grasp opportunities,” Xi was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
Xi said China must ensure that it “occupies the high ground of AI core technology” and could firmly keep the technology in its hands by leveraging “China’s massive data and huge market potential”.
He said the country should use AI to upgrade its manufacturing, adding that it could be used in China’s pursuit of a leaner and greener way of economic development.
Xi also encouraged government agencies to adopt AI.
“We need to enhance the combination of AI and social governance and develop AI systems for government services and decision-making,” Xi said, adding that public security was one field in which it could be used “in depth”.
[+] [-] saiya-jin|7 years ago|reply
But I can't help but think how it will be used for monitoring of lives of everybody. You do one misstep, government will know about it. Effectively no privacy. Compared to what it may be (and probably will), current state of China is a hippie paradise.
[+] [-] throwaway487548|7 years ago|reply
To apply machine learning techniques successfully the phenomena in question should be, ideally, discrete, fully-observable, deterministic (very precise terminology from classic AI). Mere tweaking of parameters on nonsensical or too abstract data will lead nowhere.
Outside of academia ML already is an astrology with numbers instead of planets and stars.
[+] [-] AriaMinaei|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notbeevil|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hanchinese|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] woodpanel|7 years ago|reply
Do you want to say that in China there isn't forced tech transfer, intense surveillance, censorship and repression?
Or do you want to say, because people on HN pointing out those things, they are racist?
[+] [-] sctb|7 years ago|reply