I just read an article in the Reuters talking about how China is leading the AI race, and the US is falling behind them.
China accounted for 17 of the top 20 academic institutions involved in patenting AI and was particularly strong in the fast growing area of “deep learning” - a machine-learning technique that includes speech recognition systems.
I think one of the most significant factors for their supremacy in the race is China's mass surveillance program that allows them to collect massive data from their citizens. (more on that here)
What do you think? Do you think US can catch up with China sometime soon? Or is US just leading the race anyway?
Visited Shanghai and Beijing a couple months back (visiting GF's family) and saw firsthand the application of AI use in public sphere. In this area the US is far behind China.
Example would be in the Hongqiao airport/rail station in Shanghai, people could enter the station and use their face and ID to purchase tickets, go through the security screening (TSA has a guy checking your ID) and check-in bags. They still haven't rolled it out completely yet because I'm guessing there are some issues. I wasn't able to use this process as I'm a foreigner, but it was definitely worth observing
The strangest example of AI use was at a mall my girlfriend took me to, apparently when you walk by an advertisement it scans your face and displays a digital advertising for your demographic. It showed me a Chinese Gillette advertisement for both razors and shaving cream. Pretty impressive because I hadn't shaved for the whole week.
Obviously the first two examples are just examples of AI + facial recognition software and its just one of a million different ways AI will impact our lives.
People say AI is going to eliminate a lot private sector jobs, however I bet it hits the public-sector much harder. You begin to realize how many public-sector workers could easily be replaced by a machine. Imagine going to the DMV and having the entire process take 2-3 minutes.
China will build the hardware and the US will develop the software and we will sell the shit to each other. Win-Win situation.
I've heard similar stories, and whilst impressive, we need to remember that a lot of that stems from their lack of civil liberties. There would be a shit-storm if any western government tried to implement any of those examples. Still interesting, nonetheless.
First, I'm not a software engineer (I work in CRE) so my knowledge is very limited when it comes to tech. My comments are based off of what I've experienced, read, and seen in the news.
Last year CNBC put out a segment about China's advancement in tech and it mentioned Microsoft and several other American firms were collaborating with a local Chinese firms (JV) and the CCP to develop the facial recognition software for security uses.
I know Microsoft is trying to move people away from using passwords to facial recognition, so my guess is that China is their primary test market. I guess when it comes to Public Security, China will probably be a world leader, but there are a lot of other industries/sectors that the US will probably dominate in.
Besides the advancements in security theater, the most impressive thing happening in China is fintech which they are undoubtedly the world leader in. Every transaction I saw in my last trip in China was done via alipay and wechat. A lot of restaurants we went to you could reserve a table, order food/drink, and close out your bill all seamlessly on wechat and alibaba. It's impressive because 5-6 years ago China was almost entirely a cash based society.
I do recall seeing that maths departments at Chinese top universities have passed MIT and co. but I can't find the study anymore, nor I recall the parameters they used for it.
Soon:
Wouldn't surprise me that math departments at MIT are falling behind elite Chinese universities. China's growing lead in AI and overall catching up in technology is the result of decades of idiotic US immigration policy. For years Chinese students have graduated at US universities in STEM but have to return home after graduating due to strict visa requirements. Most probably would have loved to stay to work or create a business here, but visa policy made them return home which resulted in them taking their knowledge, skills, and entrepreneurial spirit back to China.
As a ML practitioner, I want to start off by saying that most of the Deep Learning stuff you see is not AI - that's just the buzzword terminology startups use to sound more exciting to investors.
Second, a metric ton of these patents are very specialized modern solutions to older established problems. It's kinda like in the 90's during the dotcom height - where companies were churning out "x, but online" adaptions.
So why are the Chinese good at this? My theory is:
A) They're simply outnumbering the US. More manpower to come up with niche solutions to niche problems.
B) The ML and Deep Learning community is very open source, so it's enough that very few people come up with heavy-hitting Deep Learning architectures, which then tens of thousands of people will adapt to solve some specific problems. Take GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks), which you may know from all the recent "deep fakes" news. The technology can be applied to a million different problems - and thus spawn a million different patents.
More patents doesn't necessarily mean better work, with more impact - could may as well just be people applying it to their own problems, and deciding they'll patent it.
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