China Doesn’t Worry About A.I. Like We Do
5/14/202653 min
The United States and China are really the only two countries that matter right now in shaping the A.I. future. As President Trump and President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing, there’s a kind of Cold War atmosphere, with people talking about an A.I. arms race. But who is winning? Are we even in a race at all? Kyle Chan, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, says it’s hard to call it a race because the U.S. and China have very different A.I. goals.
- 00:00:25 U.S. vs. China in A.I.
- 00:03:07 Everyday A.I. in China
- 00:07:41 China's A.I. chip limitations
- 00:12:14 China's A.I. advantage: energy & deployment
- 00:16:10 China's public mood on A.I.
- 00:19:44 AI, job displacement and social concerns
- 00:23:53 Robots for China's labor shortage
- 00:26:55 China's view on America's AGI fixation
- 00:31:16 Distilling A.I. models
- 00:38:39 U.S. needs more A.I. deployment
- 00:41:48 U.S. chip policy and the hawk's argument
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
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Ross Douthat· Host0:32
The closer you are to the machine god- [laughs] ... the more its voice whispers in your ear, right?
Kyle Chan· Guest0:38
[laughs] That's right. Yeah. I don't think the Beijing has an AGI pill.
Ross Douthat· Host0:41
[upbeat music] Kyle Chan, welcome to Interesting Times.
Kyle Chan· Guest1:01
Great to be here.
Ross Douthat· Host1:02
So at the moment, there are really only two countries that matter for the AI future, the United States and China. Their leaders are meeting in Beijing, and the atmosphere is sort of similar to a kind of Cold War atmosphere, where people think and argue and talk about them being in a kind of arms race. We're leading China. We're leading China by a lot. China knows that.
Speaker 11:27
I think at the moment China is winning. There's no second