I think I need to understand two things better. 1. What would stop a authoritarian power (be it China, Russia, North Korea, Iran or some other country) to work on AI in secret even if they did agree to some AI limits or inspection via a treaty process? Have we been here before with the nuclear bomb? 2. I think I need a refresh on how things would go for the "free world" if the "authoritarian world" won an AI war so they indeed could dominate the world with their terms? Which system having the high ground be the better option? Seems like that would not go too well for freedom people. Then maybe I am still too stuck in the "us vs them" world view. This lack of clarity in spite of reading and watching Bob since before our at least arguably authoritarian President was with us the first time in 2016. I am just glad I am not the one who has to make the decisions on how to proceed in these matters. Sigh.
Do you have any evidence that China wants to squash our freedoms? It's a commonly made assumption--that China, like the US, thinks every country should adopt its system of government--but I'm not aware of any good evidence for it. OTOH, I haven't done an exhaustive search, so maybe there is some.
Thanks for the reply. I am sure you know both sides of the argument. Of course none of what follows is really "proof". The arguable evidene of China's intentions to dominate the world would include the following:
China's use of social media to spread disinformation/stroke divisive issues.
China's efforts to silence stories in the foreign media to avoid topics that they find offensive.
Using the belt and road program to gain leverage over politicians in other countries.
Using economic means to pressure or get corporations to self-censor when it comes to
China issues that they don't like aired.
Running a well honed intellectual property theft operation as well as from governments.
Election interference in democratic countries by funding political campaigns etc.
Supressing democratic movements successfully in Hong Kong and the current threat to Taiwan.
China openly promotes their model of goverment over what they see as the chaotic, inefficient and in decline of the democratic countries.
China has and is building ties with other authoritarian model countries by providing technology, funding and diplomatic cover. Russia being a big example.
China has a well organized and seemingly successful effort ongoing to intimidate and influence the Chinese diaspora.
Lets not get into human rights issues like the Uyghurs going on.
Now of course the counter argument would be these activities are all because of their fear that the USA is going to take them over if they can as well as the USA does a lot of the same things or has done a lot of the same things across the globe in history and today. Maybe all they really want is to protect their own regime so democracy does not enter China and/or all they want is dominance in their regional neighborhood.
It comes down to...in the words of inspector Callahan... "Do you feel lucky."? I don't feel lucky myself. I feel more Theodore Rooseveltesque with speak softly but carry a big stick. Thus they are not to be trusted and likely they think the same of the USA government. It seems to be a human condition we are unlikely to transend. We need an advanced universe visitor to come a la Michael Rennie in "The Day the Earth Sood Still" and tell us how they managed to get past this place humanity finds us in now. Unfortunatey they might say a strong dictatorship that resembles China... only better at it than China!
But so many of those issues don't address the question I raised, which was about whether China wants to make us adopt its system of government. You talk about China's policies re Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Uyghurs, etc.--there's a lot to criticize in those policies but they're not relevant to the question I asked. Neither is China's theft of our intellectual property, which has a straightforward economic motivation. And many of the issues you raise that arguably have some relevance to my question, I'd argue, really don't (e.g. China's ties with other authoritarian countries). And I'd say pretty much all Chinese attempts to influence discourse abroad can be explained as clumsy PR, without hypothesizing some plot to actually convert democracies into authoritarian autocracies. I'm not saying none of your points pose any challenge to my view--and if I had time I'd give the several most challenging of them the lengthy answers they deserve. But I'd encourage you to reflect on the question of why you responded to a specific and narrow question with such a broad and diffuse indictment of China. I think this dynamic captures a lot of our China discourse: People list lots of bad things about China and then assume those things add up to China being some kind of existential threat to America when, on close inspection, they don't.
Well you are indeed an expert on these things way beyond my level of thinking things through. That is why I continue to pay attention to you, support you and your work. In spite of all you have put forth over 9 years I still think and figure that the authoritarian politicians in the authoritarian governments, with China loomng as the largest threat of this type (and Russia right behind it...worse yet the theology driven like those in Iran) are most likely to want to dominate not just the spaces where they rule by fear, intimidation and violence now but they will always want more. Seems to be the nature of the beast to me. Evidently your thinking is otherwise. I do hope you are correct he says with a smile. I would love to be wrong about it all.
I'm not sure to what extent the escalating tensions with China are being driven by defense and China Hawks, as much as they are being influenced by corporate interests. It seems that the dominance of the American tech industry is under threat, essentially being outcompeted, so these companies are taking steps to hinder the competition. Eric Schmidt is an interesting case in point, given his pursuit of Cypriot citizenship (https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/9/21547055/eric-schmidt-google-citizen-cyprus-european-union) and his recent advice to students to steal TikTok's intellectual property (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-google-ceo-schmidt-advised-232209286.html). Something about it feels a bit disingenuous.
I'm sure you're right that some US companies want that kind of protection. But others are being hurt by our tech war on China. (This came up in my podcast with Paul Triollo.) In any event, I think that there's also, separate from that kind of anti-competitive impetus, a genuine belief on the part of some AI people, including Amodei, that it's of existential importance that the US beat China to the AGI threshold, and that the tech war is justified on those grounds.
We are stuck with a trifecta-enabled MAGA for at least 2 years, and maybe 4 years. AI capability is developing so fast, and will have so few constraints during that time, that the prospects for controlling the forms it will take and the risks that is will pose are dimming. Russia and the U.S. got around to arms control after the breathless race to stockpile nuclear weapons exhausted itself. AI is potentially a worse danger, and limiting it is far more complicated and more time constrained than controlling nuclear weapons. As with nuclear weapons, AI is as dangerous to life on this planet as any nation, including China or the U.S., or humanity itself, and all of the above have been responsible for a hell of a lot of grief on this planet.
It’s pretty obvious that democracy in China is just not going to happen through some kind of action like Tiananmen Square.
I’d like to suggest a database of public opinion would not only increase democracy in America and other democracies throughout the world, it would also give Chinese and Russians, a backdoor method to influence theirown governments.
We’re heading for more conflict, The remedy for disagreement is always a higher level of communication.
Does a marriage counsellor abuse their clients to convince them to get along? Or do they work on better communication skills?
I think I need to understand two things better. 1. What would stop a authoritarian power (be it China, Russia, North Korea, Iran or some other country) to work on AI in secret even if they did agree to some AI limits or inspection via a treaty process? Have we been here before with the nuclear bomb? 2. I think I need a refresh on how things would go for the "free world" if the "authoritarian world" won an AI war so they indeed could dominate the world with their terms? Which system having the high ground be the better option? Seems like that would not go too well for freedom people. Then maybe I am still too stuck in the "us vs them" world view. This lack of clarity in spite of reading and watching Bob since before our at least arguably authoritarian President was with us the first time in 2016. I am just glad I am not the one who has to make the decisions on how to proceed in these matters. Sigh.
Do you have any evidence that China wants to squash our freedoms? It's a commonly made assumption--that China, like the US, thinks every country should adopt its system of government--but I'm not aware of any good evidence for it. OTOH, I haven't done an exhaustive search, so maybe there is some.
Thanks for the reply. I am sure you know both sides of the argument. Of course none of what follows is really "proof". The arguable evidene of China's intentions to dominate the world would include the following:
China's use of social media to spread disinformation/stroke divisive issues.
China's efforts to silence stories in the foreign media to avoid topics that they find offensive.
Using the belt and road program to gain leverage over politicians in other countries.
Using economic means to pressure or get corporations to self-censor when it comes to
China issues that they don't like aired.
Running a well honed intellectual property theft operation as well as from governments.
Election interference in democratic countries by funding political campaigns etc.
Supressing democratic movements successfully in Hong Kong and the current threat to Taiwan.
China openly promotes their model of goverment over what they see as the chaotic, inefficient and in decline of the democratic countries.
China has and is building ties with other authoritarian model countries by providing technology, funding and diplomatic cover. Russia being a big example.
China has a well organized and seemingly successful effort ongoing to intimidate and influence the Chinese diaspora.
Lets not get into human rights issues like the Uyghurs going on.
Now of course the counter argument would be these activities are all because of their fear that the USA is going to take them over if they can as well as the USA does a lot of the same things or has done a lot of the same things across the globe in history and today. Maybe all they really want is to protect their own regime so democracy does not enter China and/or all they want is dominance in their regional neighborhood.
It comes down to...in the words of inspector Callahan... "Do you feel lucky."? I don't feel lucky myself. I feel more Theodore Rooseveltesque with speak softly but carry a big stick. Thus they are not to be trusted and likely they think the same of the USA government. It seems to be a human condition we are unlikely to transend. We need an advanced universe visitor to come a la Michael Rennie in "The Day the Earth Sood Still" and tell us how they managed to get past this place humanity finds us in now. Unfortunatey they might say a strong dictatorship that resembles China... only better at it than China!
End rant he says with a smile.
But so many of those issues don't address the question I raised, which was about whether China wants to make us adopt its system of government. You talk about China's policies re Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Uyghurs, etc.--there's a lot to criticize in those policies but they're not relevant to the question I asked. Neither is China's theft of our intellectual property, which has a straightforward economic motivation. And many of the issues you raise that arguably have some relevance to my question, I'd argue, really don't (e.g. China's ties with other authoritarian countries). And I'd say pretty much all Chinese attempts to influence discourse abroad can be explained as clumsy PR, without hypothesizing some plot to actually convert democracies into authoritarian autocracies. I'm not saying none of your points pose any challenge to my view--and if I had time I'd give the several most challenging of them the lengthy answers they deserve. But I'd encourage you to reflect on the question of why you responded to a specific and narrow question with such a broad and diffuse indictment of China. I think this dynamic captures a lot of our China discourse: People list lots of bad things about China and then assume those things add up to China being some kind of existential threat to America when, on close inspection, they don't.
Well you are indeed an expert on these things way beyond my level of thinking things through. That is why I continue to pay attention to you, support you and your work. In spite of all you have put forth over 9 years I still think and figure that the authoritarian politicians in the authoritarian governments, with China loomng as the largest threat of this type (and Russia right behind it...worse yet the theology driven like those in Iran) are most likely to want to dominate not just the spaces where they rule by fear, intimidation and violence now but they will always want more. Seems to be the nature of the beast to me. Evidently your thinking is otherwise. I do hope you are correct he says with a smile. I would love to be wrong about it all.
I'm not sure to what extent the escalating tensions with China are being driven by defense and China Hawks, as much as they are being influenced by corporate interests. It seems that the dominance of the American tech industry is under threat, essentially being outcompeted, so these companies are taking steps to hinder the competition. Eric Schmidt is an interesting case in point, given his pursuit of Cypriot citizenship (https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/9/21547055/eric-schmidt-google-citizen-cyprus-european-union) and his recent advice to students to steal TikTok's intellectual property (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-google-ceo-schmidt-advised-232209286.html). Something about it feels a bit disingenuous.
I'm sure you're right that some US companies want that kind of protection. But others are being hurt by our tech war on China. (This came up in my podcast with Paul Triollo.) In any event, I think that there's also, separate from that kind of anti-competitive impetus, a genuine belief on the part of some AI people, including Amodei, that it's of existential importance that the US beat China to the AGI threshold, and that the tech war is justified on those grounds.
We are stuck with a trifecta-enabled MAGA for at least 2 years, and maybe 4 years. AI capability is developing so fast, and will have so few constraints during that time, that the prospects for controlling the forms it will take and the risks that is will pose are dimming. Russia and the U.S. got around to arms control after the breathless race to stockpile nuclear weapons exhausted itself. AI is potentially a worse danger, and limiting it is far more complicated and more time constrained than controlling nuclear weapons. As with nuclear weapons, AI is as dangerous to life on this planet as any nation, including China or the U.S., or humanity itself, and all of the above have been responsible for a hell of a lot of grief on this planet.
It’s pretty obvious that democracy in China is just not going to happen through some kind of action like Tiananmen Square.
I’d like to suggest a database of public opinion would not only increase democracy in America and other democracies throughout the world, it would also give Chinese and Russians, a backdoor method to influence theirown governments.
We’re heading for more conflict, The remedy for disagreement is always a higher level of communication.
Does a marriage counsellor abuse their clients to convince them to get along? Or do they work on better communication skills?