A humane Chinese AI versus a dog-eat-dog American AI
From killing jobs to killing people, the vision of artificial intelligence supremacy in the United States is truly terrifying
There is no artificial intelligence (AI) race to dominate the technology except in the minds of America’s billionaire tech bros and the ruling elites in Washington. Unfortunately, the global news media often uncritically adopt this dog-eat-dog narrative, including sometimes this newspaper.
Now, I am not denying the intense competition between China and the United States in AI and other major industries of the 21st century. I am, however, claiming that competition is basically an end in itself for industry and political insiders in the US – with their “everything else be damned” attitude – while it is a means to far more humane socialist goals in China.
The latter’s agenda aims to preserve jobs and advance labour welfare and benefits against the threats of AI. This extends from Beijing’s policy of “diffusing” AI use to ordinary people to developing a welfare safety net.
It takes two to tango, and the Chinese leadership’s AI priority is not supremacy, but domestic self-strengthening in terms of productivity and business value creation. That has been the century-old attitude of Chinese leaders towards Western-inspired technologies, rather than dominance or supremacy.