Category: Artificial Intelligence

China’s AI Superpowers: Insights from Dr. Kai-Fu Lee

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee’s book on AI superpowers is fascinating (published in Sept 2018) especially at this time. 

He outlines China’s leadership and growth in the different areas of ai in summary.

  • AlphaGo beating Go World Champion Lee Se-dol in 2016 was the ‘Sputnik’ moment that the Chinese government (280m Chinese people watching the event live) had to declare the goal to be the world leader in AI in 10 years. 
  • Due to local competition China’s tech sector has a ‘heavy touch’ approach in launching products to entrench in the market. DiDi (China’s Uber) owns all the fuel and maintenance stations. This provides more data for AI as opposed to a US’s ‘light touch’ approach I.e. Uber. 
  • China (like Africa) is a mobile first country with more data for deep learning to operate on. 

Dr Kai-Fu Lee Predictions (By Sept 2021): 

  • Internet AI: China will lead the     US 60:40
  • Business AI: China will follow the US 30:70 
  • Perception AI: China will lead the US 80:20
  • Autonomous AI: China will match US 50:50

Overall the total AI market is forecasted to be valued at $15.7 Trillion (China will capture $7T and the US $3.7T)

Understanding Human Ambition in a Technological Age

The 8 main premises are (my full summary in comments below): 

1. Human Ambition: Has changed from surviving famine and war to living longer and happier.

2. Collective Co-operation: This ability to believe stories or narratives has allowed Homo Sapiens to dominate over other hominids and animals possible. 

3. Shared Narratives: Through shared narrative, religion and beliefs allow for moral laws to be upheld.

4. Modernity shaping lives but at what cost to the environment and meaning?

5. Liberal societies are increasing. Liberalism is the dominant form of Humanism.

6. Modern science challenges Liberalism. Biologically humans can be manipulated by external inputs and inherent biases. 

7. Algorithms & Technology ruling Human’s lives. Human neuroscience has been hacked by algorithms for our data and has resulted in the rise of dopamine addiction. 

8. Fighting Algorithms.  ‘Techno humanism’ is when humans merge with tech = Homo Deus.

‘Dataism’ allows for the algorithms to improve on their own without human intervention. 

What happens when the algorithm builds better algorithms than humans? 

Key Question: What happens when algorithms start creating better algorithms than humans?