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every once in a while comes a general
purpose technology that changes
everything
at the turn of the 20th century it was
electricity
today it's artificial intelligence
ai is going to be the foundation of all
the really really big new industries
worldwide
two countries aim to dominate that
technology the united states and china
china has announced its plan or goal to
be the world's leader in ai by 2030.
the chinese government has four times
more engineers they're putting massive
amounts of money into ai transformations
and digitization
the rapidly improving power of computer
systems has the potential to touch every
facet of the 21st century economy and
the chinese communist party has stated
it wanted to drive that advance ai is
what's going to be key to sustaining
economic growth and continue china's
rise as an advanced economy
help it escape the middle income trap
and also crucially for maintaining
performance legitimacy in the eyes of
the citizens
the us is the world leader in ai but
they're looking over their shoulder
because china's catching up and aiming
to be number one by 2030
a match like no other is about to get
underway in south korea lee c dole will
be long reigning global this guy is a
genius we'll take on artificial
intelligence program alphago and the
ultimate human versus machine smackdown
in 2015 london-based artificial
intelligence firm deepmind which is
owned by google set out to beat the
world's best go player
the number of possible configurations of
the board is more than the number of
atoms in the universe
go is probably the world's oldest board
game originating in china some 4 000
years ago
many people thought it was not possible
to have a computer be humans ago
eric schmidt was executive chairman of
alphabet google's parent company at the
time
they built an algorithm using something
called reinforcement learning that
allowed them to play the game
differently
and shockingly to many they built the
top human players of a game that was
2500 years old
the computer hadn't just out processed
the human mind it had out imagined it
the interesting thing about the game is
they played the game differently and
they came up with new moves that had not
been discovered in thousands of years of
human play
that's the future of what ai can do at
this tech forum in william following the
win deep mines ai went to china so
players could challenge and learn from
the machine
but since then this sort of
collaboration between east and west is
being overshadowed by an increasingly
adversarial approach
in part because of the transformative
power of ai
it looks like we're ahead but china's
catching up very quickly that's okay
let's stay ahead
schmidt is the chairman of the u.s
national security commission on
artificial intelligence
he's hawkish about china's ai ambitions
in the report he argues the us must win
the ai competition and that china's
progress should concern all americans
we have a window to stay ahead now what
happens if we lose this one how would
you feel if all of the key drugs were
first developed and patented in china
and were available to chinese people and
not in the west because of some
political reason it would be terrible
medical research has become a focus for
ai with analytical predictive power
being trained on vaccine and drug
development
in early 2020 a team at the
massachusetts institute of technology
used ai to discover a structurally
unique antibiotic
they took a hundred million chemical
compounds they fed it into the ai system
and it figured out
how the proteins and the molecules and
all of the chemistry would work without
them telling it it literally discovered
the rules and most people thought that
this was not computable
scientists see ai as a driving force
behind helping us discover new drugs
treatments and consumer products
and just like in washington beijing
knows there's everything to play for
the full strength of the chinese
communist party is being focused on ai
the chinese state council has ordered
all corners of the people's republic to
prioritize the development and
implementation of ai
and the order makes clear there's no
time to lose
they see ai as a general purpose
technology and gpts historically like
electricity the steam engine
they have presented opportunities
for immense boost to productivity
and for chinese leaders economic
productivity especially through new
technologies like ai is what's going to
be key to sustaining economic growth and
continue china's rise as an advance
economy
help it escape the middle income trap so
move up to higher levels of the
manufacturing chain in terms of
value-add
and also crucially for maintaining
performance legitimacy in the eyes
of
the citizens
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jeffrey ding is a researcher at
stamford's center for international
security and cooperation
he argues there's a misconception in the
west that it's beijing driving the
innovation when most of it is coming
from chinese companies
you're seeing companies lead the way and
it's not necessarily
a centralized top-down directive in fact
before the july 2017
central plan for ai development
a lot of
provinces a lot of cities had already
issued their own ai development plans
and
companies were already investing large
amounts of money into ai
so
you see in a sense a lot of times the
central government is
following the direction that's already
been set by other actors
the country has never emphasized
innovation more
than
they do today
right innovation is at the center of
china's
modernization
robin lee is the co-founder of china's
most popular search engine baidu
i think companies like us we invest you
know
more than 15 of our total revenue every
year to do r d
i think the government like that
i truly believe that this represents the
future and will be able to make big
difference uh to china to the society to
all the people who can benefit from ai
robin lee pointed to president xi
jinping's ongoing crackdown on domestic
industries as part of a broader effort
by beijing to accelerate its effort to
become technologically independent
you just cannot imagine you know the
number one and number two guy all of a
sudden merged and gaining more than 90
on market share in the us
but that happened quite a few times in
china before that's not good for
innovation so i think
that the antitrust push is kind of
justified
baidu is one of china's largest computer
technology companies but the recent
attention of alibaba's ceo has
highlighted that even the biggest
companies need to tread lightly
that degree of central control helps
beijing focus china's huge resources on
certain challenges but it could also
hold them back
my guess is and this is this is just my
view
is that chinese entrepreneurial nature
this entrepreneurship that i've seen in
china
is so strong
that they will do well in spite of these
restrictions but the chinese government
could always overreach
concern over china's reach is being
played out now in the waters around
taiwan
chinese president xi jinping has called
bringing the self-ruled island under
beijing's control an inevitable outcome
as rhetoric on both sides heats up
the future of ai plays a part in that
equation
although the us leads the world in ai
with china accelerating behind it's
taiwan that makes the advanced chips
needed to run these systems
today the key and smartest chips in the
world are built primarily in a company
called tsmc in
taiwan it looks to us like america is a
few generations behind them
and it looks to us like china is a few
generations behind america china has
also been trying to catch up and they've
spent billions and billions of dollars
and they haven't been able to do it
as tensions rise in the region and u.s
and chinese militaries explore possible
scenarios the use of ai could give one
side the edge
but what exactly that would mean isn't
clear
in general
part of the problem with with ai and war
is that everything's going to happen
faster i'll give you an example
let's imagine you're on a ship and
you're a commander and you're
intelligent and you're ready and the
computer says there's a weapon coming at
you
you can't see it
i recommend you press this button and if
you don't press this button you will be
dead
the odds of that human pressing that
button are very very high
this compression of time
is a key problem we're going to face in
our defense strategy we want to have
enough time for impor informed and
educated decisions and yet these ai
weapons can make things happen
faster than human decision time
and while the headlines focus on
difficult issues like machine directed
weapons perhaps the big gains will be
made elsewhere
our eyes and attention are drawn to the
most conspicuous most obvious things
like the weapon
whereas i think some of the most
transformative
implications of ai for military affairs
will come through
things like communications i think we
saw similar things with how electricity
another general-purpose technology
affected warfare
people at the time
thought there would be electric rays of
mass destruction and that people would
shoot off electric death lasers and that
would be sort of the weapon to end all
wars
but actually the the most important and
significant
implications of electrical innovations
for military affairs came through
communications
the electric telegraph
the radio
these were things that fundamentally
changed how militaries communicated and
were organized
with so much at stake investment in ai
is expected to grow massively
schmidt argues the us needs to think big
if it wants to stay ahead
he like many leaders in silicon valley
would like the doors thrown open to the
best and brightest from across the world
this stuff is so painful to understand
that you really need a math or a physics
phd computer science phd we need to get
all of those people into our country so
that we can put them on these projects
both for the military and for our
commercial sector
for schmidt this technology race is also
about values
he's called china's domestic use of ai a
chilling precedent for anyone around the
world who cherishes individual liberty
they understand the value of efficiency
and because of their the laws are
different they're able to violate
people's privacy surveil people and so
forth and amass these very large
databases
we took a position that we need to do
this consistent with american values
but if tech titans in silicon valley are
concerned china is going to take their
spots
ding argues they shouldn't
i would say that the us is still very
much the technological leader in this
space and that china is not poised to
overtake the us in this domain
contrary to what a lot of people have
predicted
saber rattling from washington and
beijing is harming the chance for global
collaboration
robin lee studied at both peking
university beijing and the university at
buffalo new york
he sees any freezing relationships
between the two powers as not just
banned for business but bad for progress
ai can
help in a lot of scenarios in a lot of
cases and wherever you need high-end
chips be it a data center or edge
computing for smart transportation for
energy sector for education or for
finance they all need this kind of
high-end chips to do complicated ai
tasks
i don't have the crystal ball but
my preference is certainly that the both
countries can work together and i think
by working together a lot of things can
be done faster and the world will be
better
off i like you mentioned i spent quite a
few years in the us i i know the us
well and i love my country i love china
i think for baidu's success we obviously
are rooted here in china we will benefit
from a large very large market and the
government policy to encourage
innovation but we also benefit from our
u.s partners they supply parts they help
us to to grow faster i very much like to
stay
coupled instead of decoupage
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you