🧠 Why China’s AI Vision Matters

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Welcome back AI prodigies!

In today’s Sunday Special:

• 🗺Playing the Long Game

• 🇺🇸Democratic Dysfunction

• 🇨🇳One Vision, One Nation

• 🔑Key Takeaway

Read Time: 6 minutes

🎓Key Terms

• Juguo: China’s hierarchical system that emphasizes centralized planning to achieve national goals.

• Belton Road Initiative (BRI): China’s plan to build road, rail, energy, and digital infrastructures in low-income countries across Africa and South America to enhance economic and military reliance on China.

🩺 PULSE CHECK

🗺PLAYING THE LONG GAME

China’s “Beautiful China” initiative offers a strategic and actionable framework to reduce pollutants and achieve carbon neutrality, which promotes greener development. Western countries often criticize the autocratic system for lacking a decentralized government, but China’s government framework makes long-term planning possible, unlike multi-party democracies. That’s why China leads in renewable energy production, the backbone of AI applications.

By prioritizing renewable energy and positioning itself on the cutting edge of solar panel advances and battery technology, China has amassed more renewable energy capacity than the European Union (E.U.) and the United States (U.S.) combined. Despite China’s belief in the country’s right to prioritize economic growth through fossil fuel use, Solar power and wind generation will account for 90% of China’s electricity demand by 2024.

🇺🇸DEMOCRATIC DYSFUNCTION

China has transformed itself from a follower in AI to a fierce competitor for global supremacy in just two decades. In the U.S., failed residential development projects take up to 20 years. For example, Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Project was a 22-acre mixed-use development proposal to host 6,430 housing options with 2,250 affordable units accompanied by diverse restaurants, elementary schools, and the Brooklyn Nets NBA arena.

After several decades since the original proposal, Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Project only hosts 3,212 new apartments and the Brooklyn Nets NBA Arena. According to Gib Veconi, Chair of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC), incompetent state authorities are to blame.

“From agreeing to a no-bid contract at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards to failing to confirm the economic feasibility of residential development over the rail yards to enabling a developer company to pledge those development rights to secure a loan without knowing their value, city authorities set the stage for the current plan’s failure.”

Veconi has a point. According to ShelterForce, an affordable housing blog, the distressed developer company Forest City Ratner (FCR) ran circles around city authorities. They had yet to commit to building 600 to 1,000 affordable units, phrasing taken from a 2005 contract that the developer company signed with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a housing advocacy group. “FCR and ACORN will work on a program to develop affordable for-sale units, which are intended to be 600 to 1,000 units, over 15 years and can be on or off-site.”

The developer company later claimed this timeframe needed to be revised due to market conditions. The 2008 Financial Crisis provided further cover for scaling back commitments. A couple of years later, the head of development at Forest City Ratner (FCR), Bruce Ratner, admitted the project’s timeline “was never supposed to be the time in which we build them in...I would say it’s market dependent.” In 2013, Forest City Ratner (FCR) announced it would sell 70% of the project to Greenland USA, an arm of a Shanghai-based conglomerate.

In China, every element of a project, such as planning, funding, labor, or oversight, is conducted top-down. The state owns all the land and sells the right to develop it to the highest bidder, contributing to a more cost-effective contract. The same centrally planned ethos accelerating real estate development is at least partially responsible for China’s AI boom.

🇨🇳ONE VISION, ONE NATION

China’s “juguo” system brings together universities, national labs, industries, and enormous funding to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) goals. The collaboration and horizontal support provided by the government, universities, and industries have accelerated the volume of academic and commercial outputs necessary for global AI leadership.

China’s global share of research papers in the field of AI has vaulted from 4.26% {1,086} in 1997 to 27.68% {37,343} in 2017, surpassing any other country in the world, including the U.S., a position it continues to hold.

China also consistently files more AI patents than any other country. As of March 2019, the number of Chinese AI firms has reached 1,189, second only to the U.S., which has more than 2,000 active AI firms. These firms focus more on speech synthesis and Computer Vision than their overseas counterparts.

China’s AI regulatory framework also serves to advance the country’s cohesive national strategy. Meanwhile, U.S. federal regulation must survive Big Tech lobbyists, labor unions worried about automation, Supreme Court scrutiny, and emerging data privacy law. The above Chinese policies reflect three primary goals in China’s AI governance strategy:

1. Shape AI technology to serve the CCP’s objectives, particularly regarding information control and social stability.

2. Address AI’s myriad social, economic, and ethical impacts on Chinese people, such as protecting the rights of workers.

3. Establish a policy environment conducive to global leadership in AI development and applications.

Across these policies, AI algorithms serve as a crucial entry point for regulation, reflecting China’s decision to control AI outputs to ensure they align with CCP values. Regulatory tools like the Algorithm Registry (i.e., a government database requiring companies to disclose details about their AI algorithms and participate in security assessments) help policymakers target specific AI applications, ensuring compliance while facilitating agile governance. Such frameworks would never gain the approval of Silicon Valley lobbyists.

🔑KEY TAKEAWAY

The rapid ascent of China’s AI capabilities has been fueled by its open-science approach, unique market dynamics, and cohesive regulatory environment. These capabilities could have implications far beyond China’s borders, as the country’s Belton Road Initiative (BRD) faces little U.S. opposition and could expand China’s global influence.

📒FINAL NOTE

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