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Is China Winning the AI Race?

Aug 4, 2020 Eric Schmidt , Graham Allison

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the capabilities of the United States and China to deploy artificial intelligence in solving real-world problems. While America's performance hasn't exactly inspired confidence, it maintains some important competitive advantages.

CAMBRIDGE – COVID-19 has become a severe stress test for countries around the world. From supply-chain management and health-care capacity to regulatory reform and economic stimulus, the pandemic has mercilessly punished governments that did not – or could not – adapt quickly.

The virus has also pulled back the curtain on one of this century’s most important contests: the rivalry between the United States and China for supremacy in artificial intelligence (AI). The scene that has been revealed should alarm Americans. China is not just on a trajectory to overtake the US; it is already surpassing US capabilities where it matters most.

Most Americans assume that their country’s lead in advanced technologies is unassailable. And many in the US national-security community insist that China can never be more than a “near-peer competitor” in AI. In fact, China is already a full-spectrum peer competitor in terms of both commercial and national-security AI applications. China is not just trying to master AI; it is mastering AI.

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Eric Schmidt

Writing for PS since 2015
2 Commentaries

Eric Schmidt, a former executive chairman of Google and Alphabet, is former chair of the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Advisory Board.

Graham Allison

Writing for PS since 2013
5 Commentaries

Graham Allison, Professor of Government at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

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j. von Hettlingen Aug 5, 2020

Eric Schmidt and Graham Allison maintain that China, due to its “strategic” determination to lead in AI, has certainly an edge over the US. China’s vast population of 1.4 billion affords the country “an unparalleled pool of talent.” The size of its domestic market makes it the world’s largest. Most of all its authoritarian governance places “security before privacy,” allowing companies and authorities to collect massive volume of personal data. In applying AI, “high-quality” data is a “primary” asset, which may become the “most valuable commodity” of the 21st century.
In 2017, Beijing announced plans to “lead the world” in AI by 2030. The announcement invoked considerable uneasiness in the US and elsewhere about the scope of China’s aspirations and the extent to which Beijing might use AI to tighten control over its citizens and develop more sophisticated military capabilities. In recent years, China is closing “the gap” with the US, becoming “a full-spectrum peer competitor in terms of both commercial and national-security AI applications. China is not just trying to master AI; it is mastering AI.”
In its effort to contain Covid-19, China’s “ability and willingness to deploy these technologies for strategic value has strengthened its hard power.” According to the authors, “real wars in the future will be AI-driven.” As Joseph Dunford, then the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed in 2018, “Whoever has the competitive advantage in artificial intelligence and can field systems informed by artificial intelligence, could very well have an overall competitive advantage.”
Beijing has invested heavily in AI, a strategic asset, which has opened new frontiers in science across many domains, and their impact only increases in the years to come. Leading the world in this field is essential to growing America’s economy and protecting its security. The authors believe that “the US can still compete and win in this critical domain – but only if Americans wake up to the challenge. The first step is to recognize that the US faces a serious competitor in a contest that will help to decide the future.”
Despite a fierce competition to sustain the US lead in AI, it does not need to be a zero-sum game.
Both sides “must acknowledge the necessity of cooperation in areas” – climate change, space exploration, disaster relief and pandemics – where neither the US nor China “can secure its own minimum vital national interests without the other’s help… The pandemic threatens all countries’ national interests, and neither the US nor China can resolve it alone. In developing and widely deploying a vaccine, some degree of cooperation is essential.”
According to the authors,” the idea that countries could compete ruthlessly and cooperate intensely at the same time may sound like a contradiction…..Apple and Samsung are intense competitors in the global smartphone market, and yet Samsung is also the largest supplier of iPhone parts. Even if AI and other cutting-edge technologies suggest a zero-sum competition between the US and China, coexistence is still possible. It may be uncomfortable, but it is better than co-destruction.”
It remains to be seen whether China will win the AI race. “With a population four times the size of the US, there is no question that it will have the largest domestic market for AI applications, as well as many times more data and computer scientists. And because China’s government has made AI mastery a first-order priority, it is understandable why some in the US would be pessimistic.”
According to Schmidt in an op-ed earlier this year, a recent study considering more than 100 metrics finds that the US “is well ahead of China today but will fall behind in five to 10 years. China also has almost twice as many supercomputers and about 15 times as many deployed 5G base stations as the United States. If current trends continue, China’s overall investments in research and development are expected to surpass those of the United States within 10 years, around the same time its economy is projected to become larger than ours.”
In the realm of AI technologies, China is an indispensable nation, which is striving for global leadership in high tech. According to the authors, the US “cannot hope to be the biggest, but it can be the smartest. In pursuing the most advanced technologies, it is arguably the brightest 0.0001% of individuals who make the decisive difference. While China can mobilize 1.5 billion Chinese speakers, the US can recruit and leverage talent from all 7.7 billion people on Earth, because it is an open, democratic society.”
The National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency should lend entrepreneurs and scientists a helping hand by funding their startups, that could – among others – compete with Huawei in its 5G network technology. It is important to train up-and-coming scientists and engineers, and attract more global technology experts to the US, a lot of whom end up remaining and contributing to American innovation.
AI thrives on data collection. While Americans’ concerns about privacy, security, algorithmic bias, technical standards, and the potential impact new technologies will have on their lives, are justified, both tech firms and the government need to assuage their fears and win their trust, or else their doubts will only allow China take the lead, because ordinary Chinese do not have a say whatsoever about their leadership’s actions.
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BEN L. Aug 5, 2020

An excellent article, if only more Americans could read and accept it.
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Prashant Kotak Aug 5, 2020

The big thing the US and other free nations have going for them, is that people worldwide working in the AI space (and other STEM people, and indeed other people globally in general) actually want to live in free nations. The biggest illustration is the entire last century the best brains out of Europe ending up in the US, and from the perspective of those terrified of the Russians and the Germans you can see their point. I know tecchies who would happily work in and for China for the money - in the same way they will take the Saudi riyal. I see no problem with any of this, unless you want to also object to your national football team having a foreign coach or your national Bank having a Canadian as the head. But I have yet to come across anyone saying to me they want to take out Chinese citizenship - not even the Chinese in the US and Europe will do that, notwithstanding many are still smarting from 'a century of humiliation' - just have to accept that cultural and racial loyalties and ambivalences are complex even after a generation or two for some people. There are always shills who will champion the Chinese cause because the Chinese know pretty well how to play that game, the same bribery as the US and the west has always done - eg the UK MP who speaks up for Huawei, and then you find out about his flight upgrades from standard to firstclass, courtesy of the Chinese state, and the EU administration has many minor functionaries who are recipients of Chinese bonbons. There will also always be a small number of outright traitors - Blunt, Philby, Burgess types who for political or moral reasons go to the extent of actually hurting their fellow citizens, and in fact there is evidence that lots of Nuclear knowhow originally leaked from the Manhattan project to the Russians in that way. What the US can do, and already does do is attract the best out of the rest of the world to themselves - eg the CEOs of two of the tech giants are Indian, Elon Musk is a South African, and a zillion others of course. And I can't somehow imagine those Indian CEOs looking to take out Chinese citizenship (although perhaps Musk, being a rather unique oddball just might you never know). The hidden cost of course of talent getting pulled to a rich mainland hub like the US like iron filings to a magnet, is of course that developing countries cannot catch-up and are forever chasing. In truth, attachment to the notion of a 'Nation' is as ludicrous as attachment to any religion, notwithstanding that many of us, not least me, cannot (or don't want to) shake off that irrational hook. Fear of authoritarian nations on the other hand, is all too real.
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Michael Public Aug 5, 2020

The article is a thinly veiled attempt at getting the US to fund its AI-ops like China does (or like it funds its military) - with near unlimited budget, no doubt headed up by Eric. What is not addressed is the issue of individual's liberty. AI only works with high quality and voluminous data - and even then - only if the needed signal is present in the data. Riding roughshod over individuals' rights is useful in this area, but it comes at a long term societal cost. On the other hand, outright losing the AI cold war could come with other worse consequences. I think the US should consider giving unrestrained access to data - but in a controlled, open and responsible way - unlike with the Snowden revelations, where it was clear they just illegally stole it.
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Godfree Roberts Aug 4, 2020

Excellent, commonsense analysis and wakeup call!

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) examined not just the number of AI research papers coming from China but the quality of those papers—as judged by the number of citations they receive in other work.

The study suggests that China will overtake the US in the most-cited 50% of research papers this year, the top 10% of research papers next year, and the top 1% by 2025.

China is already ahead in the number of AI patents filed, AI venture capital invested, and research papers cited worldwide.

The number of Chinese students studying AI and graduating from universities worldwide exceeds the total number of other countries’ AI students combined.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/13/136642/china-may-overtake-the-us-with-the-best-ai-research-in-just-two-years/
- Michael Public Aug 5, 2020
  
  Since most AI papers are absolutely useless and represent no real progress at all - the number of papers is a poor metric. The approach of throwing stuff at a wall and seeing if it will stick was not what put Man on the Moon, invented the Microchip or developed AI.
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- Michael Public Aug 5, 2020
  
  Yet name one ACTUAL invention in AI that comes from China? The main inventors of AI breakthroughs come from two places - Toronto and Silicon Valley. What the Chinese do in their research is just refine pre-existing methods and gather better data. Sure - this can result in better products, but it also just result in highly refined swords and armor being useless against the next gunpowder.
  - Godfree Roberts Aug 5, 2020
    
    Speaking of which, all of China's missiles (the 21st century weapon of choice), from A2A to ICBM, outrange American weapons by 50%-150%, are more accurate and carry more powerful warheads.
    
    China controls its Covid-19 outbreak with AI.
    - P. Kamath Aug 5, 2020
      
      GODFREE ROBERTS: Your replies ,I must say outperform explanations given by even seasoned mouth pieces of CPC. Not bad!
      - Godfree Roberts Aug 6, 2020
        
        Did I say anything false or misleading? Or are you unaccustomed to true statements about China?
        
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    - Michael Public Aug 5, 2020
      
      These rockets do indeed utilize significant amounts of AI and regular programming, but the technology originates in the US, China obtained the secrets 'somehow'. China have indeed worked hard on their missiles, as an answer to the US carrier fleet in particular. The Russians too on the S400 platform. The US is bust catching up, but the lag is partially due to a now cancelled treaty on medium range missiles with the USSR/Russia.
      
      I am not sure you meant to say ICBM's though - as being modified rockets they essentially exit the atmosphere, meaning they could stay up there forever circling the earth if the launcher so chose, meaning 'infinite range', in a theoretical kind of way. Besides, a 'small' nuclear arsenal like India or Pakistan is calculated by the only study on this to cause a massive nuclear winter in the northern hemisphere, just from the soot entering the atmosphere and blocking the sun - temperatures would drop below freezing for a couple years - meaning no food. Advancements beyond a hundred or so modern warheads is mostly overkill. Ultimately, the US, Russia, China, UK, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and perhaps even North Korea have the ability to wipe out 90% of people in the northern hemisphere.
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