All: Regardless of your feelings about China, if you do nationalistic flamewar on HN, or angry denunciation, or population slurring, we're going to ban you.
These threads have been getting noticeably worse lately and the worst sections of this one are vile.
Killer bots will be treated just like nukes: world powers will justify their investment in the technology by saying that the other side is also doing it, and when it becomes clear that there are only two or three powerful countries that can wield the technology, the "international treaties" will come barring everybody else from developing it.
I'm not saying that everyone should have nukes, I'm saying the EU, US, China and Russia should be making those treaties right now instead of later
With nukes we can have inspectors and we can lock down uranium. Killbots are too diffuse and too multi-use. I'm all for arms control / non-proliferation, but I really don't see how it works for these things. Also, we already have weaponized AI. We have for decades. We're now talking about a matter of degree.
I'm far, far more worried about the mass weaponization of civilian systems (self-driving car, etc) via cyber attack than I am about killbots, but they're both symptoms of a different problem:
As technological growth continues the space of potential combinations of methods accelerates. This ever expanding search space results in unpredictable threats and increasingly asymmetric attack economies.
I've been meaning to write an article on it, but I'm having trouble pulling together the math because it's so abstract. But that's the general idea.
Sounds a bit like the Fermi Paradox and Drake Equations - while the math technically works out the missing terms make it useless on a practical level.
The possibility space is limited by sanity checks of the actors - technically a terror group could start putting live rattlesnakes into snake in a can prank devices on people's doorsteps but it would be logistically difficult and incredibly stupid.
Beyond that one interesting thing about attackers are how memetic they are over what is appealing to their personal image as opposed to effectiveness. Like the symbolism matters more.
Terrorists in the US could cause lasting damage and disruption by infrastructure attacks like going around and emptying a few AR-15 clips into unguarded transformers and substations or train track sabotage around oil freight trains yet they don't at all.
Similarly looking at the historic trends between bombings vs mass shooting vs vehicular murder plots seems to be more cultural than availability related.
I wouldn't say useless, but I agree with some aspects of your general thrust.
I agree that symbolism seemingly matters more. I was actually once on a podcast years ago arguing that terrorism was essentially a solved or non-existent problem because armed with nothing more than a rented truck terrorist could plow through crowds. And in the US it was even easier! They could buy weapons at gun shows! Why did they need to hijack planes?
Ultimately, though, my arguments didn't hold. The terrorists did exactly what I thought they would do if they really wanted to cause damage.
Just because X could Y (but doesn't) doesn't mean X won't ever Y.
I'm not worried about ISIL style attacks where a couple hundred people die. Frankly cutting out one can of cola a week would probably save more lives in the West.
I'm worried about mass attack. We can skate around it all we like, but we're one bad Windows / Dropbox / Tesla / Linux / Cisco / QNX update from hundreds of thousands or millions of people dying. The Windows worm that preceded the electrical grid blackout in the mid 2000s was the inadvertent cause. If an accidental worm can take out that much we should be much more worried about the scale of the threat.
We've also never been able to secure the boarder. With drones this gets even harder because capture is no longer a real deterrent.
Security is an arms race that favours the offense over time. A theatre that strongly favours the offense requires deterrence and intelligence for dominance, but the deranged can't be deterred and I don't think intelligence will work forever. Ultimately the arms race needs to end.
I don't know the solution, but my intuition points to GATACA and UBI. But even with an optimistic estimate I still consider that a stop-gap.
I'm waiting on some academics that study multi-lateral trade agreements to send me the details of their mathematical models, since I think they'll share many of the same aspects.
1. Hard to quantify incentive structures.
2. Chaotic / cascading decisions and adaptations.
3. Growing search space that's influenced by information restriction.
4. Uncertainty of future arrangements and options.
5. Uncertainty of deterrence efficacy.
6. Even some aspects of agency problems.
I've gone through some of the papers out there but, frankly, nothing I'd consider a serious mathematical investigation. I don't need the input data so I thought this would be easy. I only need the math or computer code.
Startup and capital costs for a nuke program are considerably higher, and it is a lot harder to hide that you are building the massive facilities needed to process the raw materials and manufacture nuclear weapons. Not to mention needing to come up with a viable delivery system.
AI is nothing like that. It's just software. Once it is out there, it is going to be copied, and the resources involved are minuscule.
International arms control treaties haven't historically been worth the paper they are printed on, so there are probably a great many things that would be more worthwhile to direct energies towards.
Unfortunately I think there's a good chance humanity wipes itself out, or at least destroys civilization in the next several centuries. We are still effectively monkeys but have over time developed weapons that are capable of incredible destruction.
The issue with regulating AI kill bots is that much of the technology that could be used for good like self-driving cars can also be weaponized. There's really no way to progress without risk. The only other option would be to ban AI research.
Might be the Amish and Unabomber were right about technology
While the human body and psychological context is preprogrammed up to a point from our genetic makeup, we are capable at learning.
The same mind that was good enough to craft better stone tools sufficed to send people to other worlds.
The same societies that practiced slavery and genocide reached a point where these became non-accetable.
While as a species we are inherently capable of great horror we are also capable at great acts of compassion and love.
The fact that we are constantly teetering on the edge of animal chaos makes it only more important to try to be a decent human being. And not to listen to your amygdala so much.
If I recall correctly, DARPA regularly hosts challenges where university teams try to solve problems that clearly have military applications.
I know this can be seen as whataboutism but I feel the Western world might have gotten desensitized to its own activities in the sector, while looking warily at possible geopolitical competitors.
Bingo. Young people thinking war is a boy's toy game, east or west. Generations who haven't seen a real massacre barely need desensitization, their family culture can be inhumane and insensitive enough from home. The comments on this thread show perfectly how suspicion, lack of morals and humane thinking do all the work. The US isn't very different from China in those threats brooding within civil society.
Whataboutism only really applies to state actors bickering when both are being hypocritical.
After all, it was created as a US propaganda term for saying that it is hypocritical for the USSR to propagandise the hypocrisy of the USA, when both governments are hypocrites.
Outside of that, it is called making comparisons and it is a completely valid thing to be doing.
It refers to the practice of changing the conversation (often towards accusation of hypocrisy) rather than answering a claim. Especially when the comparison is different in kind or scope, or just plain irrelevant.
Making comparisons is valid, but it doesn't make you incapable of responding to the original arguments.
I feel that whataboutism is a term that gets abused a lot in threads about China.
Pointing out that the US does the very same doesn't necessarily discredit or diminish the problem with China's actions. If anything it shows we should be worried about these things on a global scale.
> Pointing out that the US does the very same doesn't necessarily discredit or diminish the problem with China's actions. If anything it shows we should be worried about these things on a global scale.
I think the main issue is that those actions aren't written about or criticised when done by the western powers. Hence why these article seems so hypocritical - they try to paint actions accepted and normal in western world as somehow evil when done by the eastern part. It doesn't mean they're not bad - but it does seem like the articles are just propaganda and not an objective look.
China is the new big red threat, has been for a while now. No whataboutism about it, the US does the same shit but the fear of the other is still just as strong as ever.
You don't see a difference between giving prize money to university teams vs recruiting children under the age of 18 and then putting them through a 4 year program where they are expected to enter AI research for military purposes and the candidates are explicitly vetted for loyalty to the government before entrance?
The Chinese are more efficient? Take an 18 year old, toss him or her into a college that does the challenge, get a job at one of the defense contractors later. The Chinese employee is able to do the same thing about 4 years earlier.
Your answer seems given in bad faith, but it's worth answering anyway.
There are many other things you learn and things you can go on to do as [engineering student] at [university]. Doing a [resume-boosting challenge] is one small part of your universe.
On the other hand, when you are entering a special program for weapons development and giving press releases about how long you've been studying about guns... your intentions and the expectations for you are very different.
Who do you think sponsors high school math competitions in the US?
It's the NSA. They use it for making decisions on scholarships that require working at the NSA during and after college. In order to work there (and thus to accept the scholarship), you must get security clearance, which includes being vetted for loyalty.
The existence of these types of programs isn't troubling. It's the belligerent geopolitics of the state that are troubling.
China is full of extremely bright, hardworking people. It is not a nation of brain-washed automatons. I think AI alignment is some of the most important work in the world, and I think spreading and translating AI alignment research in China, such as Stuart Russell's work, may well be more important than direct AI-safety research. Because of their huge population and much higher average quantitative ability among Han Chinese, China has roughly 20 times the number of people capable of AI research, at least if you trust their PISA scores.
Should we get human-level AI, there is a good chance it will be made in China. As I don't think the Chinese are a nation of heartless automatons, I think spreading alignment ideas in China is not at all a hopeless task.
It doesn't matter what the Chinese people are like, it matters what the Chinese government is like. If AI comes out of China the Chinese government will have complete control over it, and that is a very bad thing.
that is just a cheap excuse repeatedly used in almost all high tech areas -
1. because the Chinese government is bad, China is not allowed to join projects like the international space station.
2. because the Chinese government is bad, allowing China to have access to any semiconductor techs from the west is not acceptable.
3. because the Chinese government is bad, exporting nuclear power station tech to China is now banned.
4. because the Chinese government is bad, Huawei's phones are banned, ZTE was not allowed to buy any US made parts.
5. because the Chinese government is bad, Alipay's acquisition of MoneyGram was banned.
6. because the Chinese government is bad, Chinese universities working on China's weapon programs are banned from buying DELL desktop computers.
when US banned exporting any high tech product to China, what to do when there is a trade imbalance? get Trump into the whitehouse, cry hard for the unfairness in trade!
give me a break, please come back with some better excuses.
We've asked you before not to do nationalistic flamewar on HN, but you've kept doing it, as well as repeatedly becoming uncivil. If you continue to comment like this we're going to ban you. I'm not banning you for this comment because at least it contains factual information, but if the pattern continues, that's what will happen.
If the rest of the internet is going up in flames about this, that's more reason, not less, to take better care of HN.
> I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that free societies should not economically support oppressive ones.
That is a great idea. Except it's not really what's at play here. If it were, then the US would ban all imports from China, and not just ones where it feels it needs to maintain a strategic advantage. It would also stop supporting Saudis.
I believe what GP is trying to communicate is that US struggle against Chinese government for maintaining top superpower status, thinly veiled as concern for human rights, is unnecessarily hurting Chinese people.
We imprison more of our own people than them and we wage war all over the world, but people don't see it in their daily life so it's just background noise.
Maybe the basis should be cooperation and understanding rather than demonization and fear.
> Do you not believe the Chinese government to be corrupt, authoritarian, and/or oppressive?
I believe it's way too harmful to simply categorize government into "free" vs "bad/corrupt/authoritarian/oppressive". There're a large number of other factors to consider. I agree Chinese government has tons of problems, just like US government has tons of problems of its own, just different.
At the bottom line, Chinese government is making tons of efforts to improve the economy of the country and improve the life of all the citizens. "According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms."
> Do you not believe the Chinese government to be corrupt, authoritarian, and/or oppressive?
I agree there're corruption in Chinese government. Anti-corruption is a one of the main focus of Chinese government in the past few years. Moreover, corruption has nothing to do with 'freedom' vs 'non-freedom'. There are way too many heavily corrupted democratic government in the world.
Is it authoritarian? Yes there is only one party in power - the CPC. The party has close to 100 million members throughout the country, which is close to 1/10 of the entire population. You can't possibly consider a party like that to be a single entity. There's also semi-democratic process: People elect representatives and they form National People's Congress - highest organ of state power in China.
Is it oppressive? Well, media censorship is a thing, and if you had to go on the street and protest the government in the same way you'd protest Trump, the government might invite you to "have a talk". But people still talk shit about the government all the time in private and on social media. The comments are likely to get deleted / banned. That sucks, but it is not something that could hugely impact the quality of life of regular citizens. You can still hear lots of dissident voices on the internet, and the government would often respond to that in positive ways.
You're not wrong, the Chinese government works well for you if you're Han Chinese living near an urban area who doesn't have any problematic political leanings. The problem is the world is the world is not made solely of such people.
Interestingly I just replied to someone else asking about minorities groups in China, you can find it just by searching for my handle. Long story short: It's fine to live in China as a minority group.
I've also expressed my opinion about some other issues like Xinjiang in another thread if you're interested:
I'm not saying there aren't tons of problems with Chinese government. But from the point of view of a Chinese citizen, the human right issues are mostly excuses that western media use to attack Chinese government; a lots of those are false claims; and even for the parts that'd be truth, it impacts very few amount of people and it's generally not a big concern for vast majority of people living in China no matter Han or not (Not saying violating human right is fine but the issue has much lower priority for most people)
To avoid continuing a flamewar we can just agree to disagree. Yes, Uighurs, Tibetians, and Falun Gong practitioners are minorities. The fact that they are minorities does not affect how I feel about the way they are treated.
There're tons of Uighurs, Tibetians living in peace in China. Plenty of them also live in the east part of China, and plenty of Han people live in Xinjiang and Tibet as well. Falun Gong is banned, yeah, and most Chinese would support that. The government has nothing against minority groups, but it would take actions if: they become a threat to public safety; they become extremists and possibly engage in terrorism, no matter which ethnic group they are; they try to separate part of China out of the country (that's a red line for the government); they attempt to overthrown the government (yeah that's another red line). I wouldn't say there're no wrong-doings when the government take actions, but it's certainly not a concern for most Chinese citizens.
> “These kids are all exceptionally bright, but being bright is not enough,” said a BIT professor who was involved in the screening process but asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.
> “We are looking for other qualities such as creative thinking, willingness to fight, a persistence when facing challenges,” he said. “A passion for developing new weapons is a must … and they must also be patriots.”
I think it's fair to say the students they are recruiting can't have any misgivings about the fact that their projects will have military applications.
I highly doubt your conclusion. You know what happens to smart Chinese people? They leave China. The comforts of capitalism and the cultural gravity of the West is too strong to overcome. They still don't even use toilets in much of the country and you're claiming they're going to invent AI, come on.
Don't get me wrong. They are not a nation of automatons, I am not calling them dumb or inferior. Just be real. They are making social progress, but they're still very far behind, and that pushes a lot of smart people out.
Can you show me some sources for the claim that 'Chinese people do not using toilets in much of the country'? For all I know, it's the Indians and some Middle East countries that prefer water over toilet paper.
Yes I have been to China, as I was born and raised in China. I've been to small villages, towns and large cities.
I would say that very few places are actually not using toilets like the some places in north-western/south-western part of China. However, the majority of the Chinese people live in other parts along the coast and major water bodies.
I remember when I was very little, so at least 20 years ago, there were no toilets in the village I was born in. It has not remained that case since then. I would say your information is pretty stale.
Just curious what your background experience is that causes you to take this stance that they are not all brain-washed automatons? Is this based on Mainland Chinese you've met in the US? Or in Mainland China?
When the Soviet Union collapsed and China became the last political power playing on the same level as the US.
You'd think that after all the recorded historical examples of populations being duped into believing some other group of people is subhuman - countless cases since the Ancient Rome to the XX century, all of them discussed on history lessons in western schools - you'd think people would be less willing to accept another round of the same propaganda classifying a whole society as inferior. It's sad that we still can't avoid that trap.
I've been to China and met Chinese people. They're normal. People, like everyone else, with problems like everyone else, with dreams and fears and passions, like everyone else.
He was involved in the Brtitish chemical weapons program. There are some interesting arguments in that little volume, which apply equally well to AI killerbots.
And this is why I'm glad Sam and Elon and everyone else started OpenAI. We need more people working towards benevolent AI/AGI to offer competition/opposition to state-funded AI/AGI that will almost certainly be used first and foremost for military applications.
I don't think OPENAI will make much difference. Companies & states will simply leech off OPENAI and copyright, trademark, patent or hide their own improvements.
From my understanding of OpenAI they plan to be open with their research but not necessarily share code.
Sure, anything they patent gives a foreign government a starting point and the U.S. government can use secrecy orders to prevent patents from being public or even flat out locking them down via things like the Invention Secrecy Act but I think OpenAI, and similar initiatives, will still considerably benefit mankind when they actually start to develop 'AI' with practical applications and certainly if they develop AGI.
For example with OpenAI this work they're doing with learning dexterity with the robotic hands could drastically assist amputees in the very near future by learning quickly from input from the user to make considerably more functional artificial limbs.
I'd like to point out that a lot of "defense" research ends up used primarily or even exclusively for things other than military applications. The military is used as a feeder for R&D because calling it defense is how you sell useful spending (and Keynesian stimulus) to conservatives. The US defense budget is full of only nominally defense R&D. This is probably as true in China as it is in the USA.
The US did this quite a bit, especially during the height of the Cold War. In fact you go could so far as to say that America's elite schools operate (or did at least then) as intellectual feeders for the defense industry.
To say they are fervent about righting the wrongs and perceived wrongs of the past is an understatement. It's pretty much a driving force of life with many people. It's a powerful dynamic. And it's one that's held close to the chest by Chinese students studying here in the US but in China it's freely talked about, written about, and taken for granted as the right thing.
On our (the west) side we also have racism and nationalism. But I think our more diverse (talking about points of view, not race here) and more activist anti-racism voices are a tempering force that China lacks.
Relating this to weaponization of AI, I think people like Stuart Russell are naive to think that watching Slaughterbots would give these students pause. On the contrary, it would excite them, because it's showing exactly the kind of thing they would be delighted to develop. Not that I know these students, but I'm aware how China drills bitterness into its people about their past humiliations, and uses this to develop racist nationalism. Pretty scary.
> China has cultivated in its people a very troubling mental complex
> China drills bitterness into its people about their past humiliations, and uses this to develop racist nationalism
I don't believe you meant to, but you crossed into nationalistic and racial flamewar with this comment. Imagine how it must feel to read something like this if you're on the receiving end. It's surprising how many of the replies below managed to remain thoughtful. When I read those comments and compare them to yours, it's clear who the model HN users are in this case.
I don't think you were being malicious, I think you underestimated the difference between musing in a personal conversation and broadcasting to potentially millions of people. For example, it isn't enough to protest that you didn't mean all Chinese, just the ones who <insert caveat here>. That is far too crude to undo the impact such claims make on the ones who are being categorized. If you can imagine yourself in that position, this is not hard to see; yet it is hard to imagine, because we're mostly so certain that none of it could ever be justified in our own case, so it feels like no big deal.
I've been through 3-8th grade education in Chengdu at a top 100 school. The rest of my education was in the US, so I may be biased in one way or the other.
From my perspective, I didn't really see it that way. Like any country, the history curriculum focuses on China's history, focusing primarily on ancient history (pre-Qing dynasty) for 3 semesters with one semester of modern Chinese history (Qing to present). While there certainly was a nationalistic tendency in many topics I would regard the information as historically accurate (as compared to courses about east Asian history here in the US). And in reality, my many friends in China with whom I've maintained contact over the years do not have this sort of mentality and are against censorship and much of the nationalistic messaging.
Another interesting note that people here have no knowledge of is professors in China are often times anti-CCP. Many professors take this to the extreme and in papers will often just give a bad grade if it mentions any good policy by the CCP.
On a semi-related note, the comments many make here on HN about China make me extremely uncomfortable. Not because they touch on sensitive topics but because they smear an entire population of people as liars, thieves, and mindless followers. Replace the word "China" and "Chinese" with "Italy" and "Italian" in many comments and they could have been written back in the Ellis Island days.
They make me and the other HN moderators uncomfortable too. Unfortunately, I don't know what to do about it at scale. We will continue banning the worst and asking the rest not to do this. But it's a matter of mass trends meeting mass psychology. I feel like Canute commanding the waves to stop, knowing that it won't work.
When you notice examples of this, we'd appreciate it if you (or anyone) would email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can at least post moderating comments in the thread. We can't come close to seeing all the comments, and sometimes I notice wretched stuff days later that it pains me to have missed at the time.
I should have made it more clear it's not all people, it's many people. And the problem is not the people, it's the system of government control of education, media, and now digital media at every level. You have been exposed to more voices (metaphorical) so you are one of the lucky ones. It's good to hear you find some of these voices to be inside of China still. I imagine being inside the system before encountering more viewpoints (grades 3-8 in your case) it would hard to see anything wrong. It's like being in the matrix and not knowing you're in the matrix.
I am a Chinese citizen and all my education was in China, from kindergarten to grad school.
> China has cultivated in its people a very troubling mental complex centered on national pride and driven by the Century of Humiliation.
I’d say this is correct to a small extent — the history lessons in particular, took that stance when it’s covering contents about Chinese history from late Qing dynasty to the end of WW2. But the education also renders China as a peaceful nation, and the rise of China would benefit the entire world, which majority of the Chinese population agrees.
> To say they are fervent about righting the wrongs and perceived wrongs of the past is an understatement
It would be a correct statement if “righting the wrong” simply means “making China a great country again” so that “centuries of humiliation would never happen again”. Yes majority of Chinese citizens do have national pride, not unlike people any other country I’ve seen. Except maybe some extreme nationalists, most Chinese citizens would love to see China becoming stronger peacefully and be helpful to under-developed parts of the world.
> But I think our more diverse (talking about points of view, not race here) and more activist anti-racism voices are a tempering force that China lacks.
There are very little discussion about racism in China compared to US, simply because it’s less relevant. - Most Chinese don’t ever interact with a different race. But diversity in oppinions in other topics are very common. I’d say it’s virtually impossible to keep a billion citizens on the same page.
Just as an example, at the core of China’s “nationalism education” (don’t know what should I call it) is the anti-Japanese war which was part of WW2. Like South Korea, plenty of Chinese hate Japan for not acknowledging the war crimes they’ve done and trying to erase those facts from their history books. There had been several movement to boycott Japanese products in the past two decades. At the same time, Japanese culture actually have a huge influence in China, especially among young people. Japan is also one of the most popular foreign destinations Chinese people would love to travel to.
I'm curious to know if you can speak to how minority populations are discussed or addressed in a historical or modern context? I understand that there is something like 50+ recognized minority groups in China.
In a historical context, the minority groups are mostly people lived in different areas. Typically Han was in the central/east region in China, and there were other groups in north/west and sometimes south. There had been lots of wars in the past, and lots of peace as well. The fairly recent Qin dynasty was actually founded by a minority group in the northeast, and they ruled Han along with all other minority groups for hundreds of years. Most minority groups are heavily influenced by culture of Han, whether they controlled large part of China or not. For example, after Qin dynasty controlled the entire China, the emperors inherited plenty of traditions from Han; they started speaking Chinese and learning from classical Han literature; and they influenced Han culture as well. There are exceptions like Genghis Khan -> They occupied China but didn't care about local culture at all, and soon they left.
All the dynasties founded in the region, no matter if it was mostly Han people or minority groups, are considered part of China's history now. Just that Han had much higher weight in history books.
In a modern context, the main theme from textbooks is that all the minority groups live peacefully together and united as one nation, no matter what the history is. This is mostly true in reality, except maybe a small number of people in the west might want separation. You can find people from all minority groups living in large cities in the east of China, where the economy is most advanced. They mostly appear not much different from Han people, even though they might still carry some traditions from their own culture. Sometimes Han people might get curious when they meet someone from a minority group, but mostly they won't treat them any differently.
Being a part minority group is generally a good thing in China -> Among other things, they get bonus points in college entrance exams, which is a very big deal for vast majority of Chinese.
I'm Chinese and I can confirm that I am, in fact, a bloodthirsty monster fueled by vengeance as GP commented. In fact I am building a next-gen killbot in my basement as we speak. My education from the Chinese system has left me with no capability for individual thought and zero perspective of the outside world, and therefore all my fellow Chinese citizens are driven by stereotypical perceptions of Chinese culture, as Western internet commenters describe.
Just to be clear，and I'm not saying your missed this distinction, but in case anyone did, I'm not talking about Chinese the race (which technically can be argued as consisting of many races, btw). I'm talking about what the education and state controlled media does to China's citizens who grow up in China.
Being foreign born myself, I can see this pretty easily. When you have an external enemy outside of this country, the entire country will unite in that cause even in the endeavor to create very powerful weapons. (Think US affinity for nuclear proliferation during the cold war.) Few will pause to think that such weapons will be used against the best of our own people.
And that is the mentality difference between the US and China. US (having no real enemies) citizens see development of these weapons as potentially being used against its own citizens. Whereas Chinese citizens sees these weapons being to protect themselves from external threats.
lol exaggeration much? Psychoanalyzing other people, especially a whole country, without communicating with them is a sign of close-mindedness that I thought rational discourses on HN would preclude.
There are hundreds of thousands of Chinese students in the US whose view on nationalism differs from individual to individual. Not only is the characterization of a purported hidden motif not warranted, it is reminiscent of Yellow Peril.
Nationalism is certainly alive in China. But Chinese foreign policy is only assertive only in its immediate periphery. To think that they are harboring this deep seeded grudge against the West that would threaten our physical safety is ludicrous.
>But Chinese foreign policy is only assertive only in its immediate periphery.
This is a good point which seems to hold for now, at least with regard to exertion of military force. It’s mostly defensive although there is disagreement about the boundaries of what is to be defended.
Longer term though there are concerning matters like the extension of predatory loans to African governments in exchange for mineral and other development rights. Ironically similar to some of the abuses China suffered in its past.
If China were staying 'beneath' the west, like they're 'supposed to', we wouldn't have scare articles every week in the economist and the NYT, and we wouldn't have this comment at the top of the thread.
You're demonizing them as scary others and proving the point of hardliners there.
Tangentially, and anecdotally, I had Tinder-related relations with a Chinese girl studying at Columbia for awhile earlier this year. Definitely very bright. A lot of the conversations we had degenerated into how she thought white people/Europeans have been evil throughout history, especially over the past few centuries, along with other tidbits like Hitler was good and racial genocide is a good idea.
She may have been a bit insane - but, generally, it dawned on me what students in China must be being taught in their homes and at history class. And, yet, tying into this article - the amount of Chinese students, studying at our universities, being taught subjects like AI that they can use to build weapons against us is growing at a superlinear rate.
I noticed Trump was considering banning Chinese from studying here and I've heard various arguments as to why we must allow them to do so, but none of them seem to me even remotely convincing to outweigh the increasingly apparent downsides that may come in the incipient future.
My, perhaps hyperbolic, conclusion is that we're displacing our own students, who may, granted, not be able to score as highly on the Gaokao, in order to line the pockets of a university bubble, and our knowledge that we're imparting may soon be used against us by a totalitarian, imperialistic society that has a cultivated hatred towards us. I hope that politicians take a more hawkish stance on this - even if some universities have to scale down.
My wife was born and raised in China. I love her dearly, but my anecdata in large part concurs with yours.
I should mention she's certainly conflicted and aware of some inconsistencies in a good number of her beliefs, even if she generally defends them or changes the topic when they come up.
Though I'm not sure I agree with your suggested course of action.
To clarify, I'm not suggesting an outright ban - that would be a foreign policy gaffe of monumental proportions.
I also have no prejudice towards Chinese people, but I do feel that it is time for Americans to unite, realize that their is still hatred in the world (much of which is cultural), and toughen back up.
The solution isn't a ban, it's requiring they become US citizens after they get their degree. Right now we educate them and send them right back. Meanwhile we let in 50,000+ uneducated illegal immigrants a month. It's moronic to allow top tier talent to go back to China rather than keeping them here to benefit the US
> The solution isn't a ban, it's requiring they become US citizens after they get their degree...It's moronic to allow top tier talent to go back to China rather than keeping them here to benefit the US
Kind of like indentured servitude, right?
They also (presumably) pay full price for their education so "we" aren't educating them, they are educating themselves.
I think the situation is much more complicated than that. Who do they have allegiance to? What are their ideals, inculcated from their family and society from a young age, even if they appear to you as professional and unbiased? If foreign policy becomes more hostile to China, which it has been and likely will become more so, where will the people who we've employed return to and aid instead of us?
Chinese students have clearly had access to our job and research markets, but that has been changing with sinophobia, along with rising economic opportunity in China coupled with concerted efforts by the Chinese government to repatriate those educated here.
So, I am taking that information into account when I say the situation reduces to the conclusion that the pragmatic solution is to drastically reduce the amount studying here.
I don't think a ban would be a good idea, either. Probably the best outcome, in my estimation, would be for a bipartisan big brother to tap university heads on the shoulder and tell them to cut the inflow dramatically.
We need to weaponise our education system against them. Full tuition for humanities; total restriction of access to science and technology programs. This will cultivate liberalism, democracy and dissent amongst Chinese students which would destabalize their regime, while depriving them of the technical knowledge they crave in their drive to overthrow the West. We have been very naive to allow so much access to our intellectual resources to a power that knows how to use it against us.
doubtful, the progressives that humanities departments turn out are the most authoritarian people I know. Many have a quasi-religious propensity to classify anyone who disagrees with them as evil and irredeemable. They'd fit in perfectly with the CPC
What you are proposing is simply an indoctrination programme. It is not more ethical than theirs just because this one aligns with your views on politics.
I definitely agree with what you're suggesting would be a great idea, but I'm not sure something like that could happen in the near future. I get the impression that the Democrats and their media have not entirely endorsed the trade war and anti-Sino policies as a means to point out Trump's incompetence and divisiveness, but that seems to be shifting. Washington probably doesn't want to escalate too much at any given time, as well, but meter it out slowly. I'm hoping that they do not buckle.
Divide whatever your number is by 1.4 billion. Labeling and judging people is always tempting in the face of complexity, but it is also always a choice you make.
The Chinese Government is suppressing free speech regarding Tibet, Taiwan, Uyghurs, corruption, forced displacement and plenty of other socially relevant topics. And just as it takes two to tango it takes two to suppress free speech. One party to suppress (in this case literally as there is just one) and another to effectively obey - that's the Chinese society pretty much in its entirety. That means Chinese society is effectively brought into line.
So from that perspective I don't understand why 'natch' is receiving so much protest here. Totalitarian regimes are as easy to predict as a linear function and the Chinese "government" is totalitarian. The goal is to maximize power by all means necessary and - to err on the side of caution - also all means available and obtainable.
Humanitarian concerns exclusively play a role in governments and societies where at least some level of democratic processes and transparency can be carried out.
It's not Chinese people aren't aware of what the Chinese government is/has been doing. This is why natch's comments have received so many negative feedbacks. natch doesn't give any evidences to support his arguments. Instead, he just bluntly said that 'Slaughterbots would excite them' as if he has seen it in person. This is an insult on the intelligence and moral standard of Chinese student or common man.
I know what the Chinese government has been doing and I was born and raised in China. However, that doesn't make me the immoral, senseless and vengeful entity he is trying to portray in his comment.
I know it's easy to generalize a certain group of people with whatever you hear from the news or read on the Internet, especially if you've not had too much meaningful interactions with individuals from that group. So I don't blame him, as I was somewhat similar before I came to the US and get to know the US people.
First of all the practical difference between believing in something and behaving as if one believes in that is often neglectable. Especially when either of both things can be said about the majority of a society.
Secondly, nobody is immoral, nobody is vengeful or senseless - but having said that - the enemies of the state of course do not deserve moral standards as they don't adhere by those standards themselves ... "just watch the news if you want to know how many children they killed with their latest terror attack!".
The truth is - everybody loves slaughter bots as long as the right people get slaughtered - and who is that? Well, for the majority it's those labelled bad in the information sources they consume ... and are Chinese news independent? No, they aren't.
The Americans and Israelis love their drones - which aren't philosophically different from slaughter bots - and as long as those remove terrorists or taliban nobody would question those.
You think other nations actually buy into peaceful globalism? Everyone is just looking for an opportunity to be the next global superpower and rule the world, and only play nice-nice insofar as it furthers this goal. Global trade certainly does not guarantee global peace. We had global trade before WW1 and WW2, and it did nothing to stop the most horrific wars ever seen in history.
I certainly don't believe the US has such a policy. So, it surprises me when people think other countries have such a policy. Never has such a thing happened in the history of the world.
learn history. China was a textbook quality isolationist when it was the biggest economy in the world. it doesn't have any peaceful globalism policy because trading with the rest of the world was simply banned.
Not only do most people not want to be boss, most nations aren't trying to take over the world.
One interesting thing: since most nations are tiny, and they are so utterly dependent on playing ninjitsu against others because they have no hard power ... the though doesn't occur to them. It becomes part of the national identity.
These threads have been getting noticeably worse lately and the worst sections of this one are vile.
I'm not saying that everyone should have nukes, I'm saying the EU, US, China and Russia should be making those treaties right now instead of later
With nukes we can have inspectors and we can lock down uranium. Killbots are too diffuse and too multi-use. I'm all for arms control / non-proliferation, but I really don't see how it works for these things. Also, we already have weaponized AI. We have for decades. We're now talking about a matter of degree.
I'm far, far more worried about the mass weaponization of civilian systems (self-driving car, etc) via cyber attack than I am about killbots, but they're both symptoms of a different problem:
As technological growth continues the space of potential combinations of methods accelerates. This ever expanding search space results in unpredictable threats and increasingly asymmetric attack economies.
I've been meaning to write an article on it, but I'm having trouble pulling together the math because it's so abstract. But that's the general idea.
The possibility space is limited by sanity checks of the actors - technically a terror group could start putting live rattlesnakes into snake in a can prank devices on people's doorsteps but it would be logistically difficult and incredibly stupid.
Beyond that one interesting thing about attackers are how memetic they are over what is appealing to their personal image as opposed to effectiveness. Like the symbolism matters more.
Terrorists in the US could cause lasting damage and disruption by infrastructure attacks like going around and emptying a few AR-15 clips into unguarded transformers and substations or train track sabotage around oil freight trains yet they don't at all. Similarly looking at the historic trends between bombings vs mass shooting vs vehicular murder plots seems to be more cultural than availability related.
I agree that symbolism seemingly matters more. I was actually once on a podcast years ago arguing that terrorism was essentially a solved or non-existent problem because armed with nothing more than a rented truck terrorist could plow through crowds. And in the US it was even easier! They could buy weapons at gun shows! Why did they need to hijack planes?
Ultimately, though, my arguments didn't hold. The terrorists did exactly what I thought they would do if they really wanted to cause damage.
Just because X could Y (but doesn't) doesn't mean X won't ever Y.
I'm not worried about ISIL style attacks where a couple hundred people die. Frankly cutting out one can of cola a week would probably save more lives in the West.
I'm worried about mass attack. We can skate around it all we like, but we're one bad Windows / Dropbox / Tesla / Linux / Cisco / QNX update from hundreds of thousands or millions of people dying. The Windows worm that preceded the electrical grid blackout in the mid 2000s was the inadvertent cause. If an accidental worm can take out that much we should be much more worried about the scale of the threat.
We've also never been able to secure the boarder. With drones this gets even harder because capture is no longer a real deterrent.
Security is an arms race that favours the offense over time. A theatre that strongly favours the offense requires deterrence and intelligence for dominance, but the deranged can't be deterred and I don't think intelligence will work forever. Ultimately the arms race needs to end.
I don't know the solution, but my intuition points to GATACA and UBI. But even with an optimistic estimate I still consider that a stop-gap.
1. Hard to quantify incentive structures.
2. Chaotic / cascading decisions and adaptations.
3. Growing search space that's influenced by information restriction.
4. Uncertainty of future arrangements and options.
5. Uncertainty of deterrence efficacy.
6. Even some aspects of agency problems.
I've gone through some of the papers out there but, frankly, nothing I'd consider a serious mathematical investigation. I don't need the input data so I thought this would be easy. I only need the math or computer code.
AI is nothing like that. It's just software. Once it is out there, it is going to be copied, and the resources involved are minuscule.
International arms control treaties haven't historically been worth the paper they are printed on, so there are probably a great many things that would be more worthwhile to direct energies towards.
The issue with regulating AI kill bots is that much of the technology that could be used for good like self-driving cars can also be weaponized. There's really no way to progress without risk. The only other option would be to ban AI research.
Might be the Amish and Unabomber were right about technology
No need to speculate about killer AI bots when you've got plain old famine, drought and resource wars.
While the human body and psychological context is preprogrammed up to a point from our genetic makeup, we are capable at learning.
The same mind that was good enough to craft better stone tools sufficed to send people to other worlds.
The same societies that practiced slavery and genocide reached a point where these became non-accetable.
While as a species we are inherently capable of great horror we are also capable at great acts of compassion and love.
The fact that we are constantly teetering on the edge of animal chaos makes it only more important to try to be a decent human being. And not to listen to your amygdala so much.
I know this can be seen as whataboutism but I feel the Western world might have gotten desensitized to its own activities in the sector, while looking warily at possible geopolitical competitors.
After all, it was created as a US propaganda term for saying that it is hypocritical for the USSR to propagandise the hypocrisy of the USA, when both governments are hypocrites.
Outside of that, it is called making comparisons and it is a completely valid thing to be doing.
Making comparisons is valid, but it doesn't make you incapable of responding to the original arguments.
Pointing out that the US does the very same doesn't necessarily discredit or diminish the problem with China's actions. If anything it shows we should be worried about these things on a global scale.
I think the main issue is that those actions aren't written about or criticised when done by the western powers. Hence why these article seems so hypocritical - they try to paint actions accepted and normal in western world as somehow evil when done by the eastern part. It doesn't mean they're not bad - but it does seem like the articles are just propaganda and not an objective look.
So, the default assumption is that killbots controlled by your country are safe to you, but killbots made by a foreign power are dangerous.
There are many other things you learn and things you can go on to do as [engineering student] at [university]. Doing a [resume-boosting challenge] is one small part of your universe.
On the other hand, when you are entering a special program for weapons development and giving press releases about how long you've been studying about guns... your intentions and the expectations for you are very different.
The existence of these types of programs isn't troubling. It's the belligerent geopolitics of the state that are troubling.
http://www.usamts.org
https://www.intelligencecareers.gov/icstudents.html
In any country on earth, you be pretty much 'vetted for loyalty' before they let you close to their sensitive intelligence or tech related work.
The US is, however, involved in overthrowing scores of other country’s regimes.
Should we get human-level AI, there is a good chance it will be made in China. As I don't think the Chinese are a nation of heartless automatons, I think spreading alignment ideas in China is not at all a hopeless task.
that is just a cheap excuse repeatedly used in almost all high tech areas -
1. because the Chinese government is bad, China is not allowed to join projects like the international space station.
2. because the Chinese government is bad, allowing China to have access to any semiconductor techs from the west is not acceptable.
3. because the Chinese government is bad, exporting nuclear power station tech to China is now banned.
4. because the Chinese government is bad, Huawei's phones are banned, ZTE was not allowed to buy any US made parts.
5. because the Chinese government is bad, Alipay's acquisition of MoneyGram was banned.
6. because the Chinese government is bad, Chinese universities working on China's weapon programs are banned from buying DELL desktop computers.
when US banned exporting any high tech product to China, what to do when there is a trade imbalance? get Trump into the whitehouse, cry hard for the unfairness in trade!
give me a break, please come back with some better excuses.
If the rest of the internet is going up in flames about this, that's more reason, not less, to take better care of HN.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that free societies should not economically support oppressive ones.
That is a great idea. Except it's not really what's at play here. If it were, then the US would ban all imports from China, and not just ones where it feels it needs to maintain a strategic advantage. It would also stop supporting Saudis.
I believe what GP is trying to communicate is that US struggle against Chinese government for maintaining top superpower status, thinly veiled as concern for human rights, is unnecessarily hurting Chinese people.
We imprison more of our own people than them and we wage war all over the world, but people don't see it in their daily life so it's just background noise.
Maybe the basis should be cooperation and understanding rather than demonization and fear.
I believe it's way too harmful to simply categorize government into "free" vs "bad/corrupt/authoritarian/oppressive". There're a large number of other factors to consider. I agree Chinese government has tons of problems, just like US government has tons of problems of its own, just different.
At the bottom line, Chinese government is making tons of efforts to improve the economy of the country and improve the life of all the citizens. "According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China
> Do you not believe the Chinese government to be corrupt, authoritarian, and/or oppressive?
I agree there're corruption in Chinese government. Anti-corruption is a one of the main focus of Chinese government in the past few years. Moreover, corruption has nothing to do with 'freedom' vs 'non-freedom'. There are way too many heavily corrupted democratic government in the world.
Is it authoritarian? Yes there is only one party in power - the CPC. The party has close to 100 million members throughout the country, which is close to 1/10 of the entire population. You can't possibly consider a party like that to be a single entity. There's also semi-democratic process: People elect representatives and they form National People's Congress - highest organ of state power in China.
Is it oppressive? Well, media censorship is a thing, and if you had to go on the street and protest the government in the same way you'd protest Trump, the government might invite you to "have a talk". But people still talk shit about the government all the time in private and on social media. The comments are likely to get deleted / banned. That sucks, but it is not something that could hugely impact the quality of life of regular citizens. You can still hear lots of dissident voices on the internet, and the government would often respond to that in positive ways.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/world/asia/china-detentio...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2018/10/16/organ-h...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/world/asia/liu-xiaobo-dea...
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/beijing-encroachment-hong-kong-fre...
If you believe China lifting people out of poverty excuses a laundry-list of human rights abuses we'll have to agree to disagree.
I've also expressed my opinion about some other issues like Xinjiang in another thread if you're interested:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18439175
I'm not saying there aren't tons of problems with Chinese government. But from the point of view of a Chinese citizen, the human right issues are mostly excuses that western media use to attack Chinese government; a lots of those are false claims; and even for the parts that'd be truth, it impacts very few amount of people and it's generally not a big concern for vast majority of people living in China no matter Han or not (Not saying violating human right is fine but the issue has much lower priority for most people)
To avoid continuing a flamewar we can just agree to disagree. Yes, Uighurs, Tibetians, and Falun Gong practitioners are minorities. The fact that they are minorities does not affect how I feel about the way they are treated.
> “We are looking for other qualities such as creative thinking, willingness to fight, a persistence when facing challenges,” he said. “A passion for developing new weapons is a must … and they must also be patriots.”
I think it's fair to say the students they are recruiting can't have any misgivings about the fact that their projects will have military applications.
Thats a ridiculous argument: they are 1.5MM, im pretty sure you can find a few milions smart enough who fit the description of the parent comment.
Its not racist or whatnot.. every nation has its smart fanatics
Don't get me wrong. They are not a nation of automatons, I am not calling them dumb or inferior. Just be real. They are making social progress, but they're still very far behind, and that pushes a lot of smart people out.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I remember when I was very little, so at least 20 years ago, there were no toilets in the village I was born in. It has not remained that case since then. I would say your information is pretty stale.
Since when does progressivism mean "try to understand and respect other cultures, except the Chinese, fuck them"? When did that last part get added?
You'd think that after all the recorded historical examples of populations being duped into believing some other group of people is subhuman - countless cases since the Ancient Rome to the XX century, all of them discussed on history lessons in western schools - you'd think people would be less willing to accept another round of the same propaganda classifying a whole society as inferior. It's sad that we still can't avoid that trap.
I've been to China and met Chinese people. They're normal. People, like everyone else, with problems like everyone else, with dreams and fears and passions, like everyone else.
He was involved in the Brtitish chemical weapons program. There are some interesting arguments in that little volume, which apply equally well to AI killerbots.
Sure, anything they patent gives a foreign government a starting point and the U.S. government can use secrecy orders to prevent patents from being public or even flat out locking them down via things like the Invention Secrecy Act but I think OpenAI, and similar initiatives, will still considerably benefit mankind when they actually start to develop 'AI' with practical applications and certainly if they develop AGI.
For example with OpenAI this work they're doing with learning dexterity with the robotic hands could drastically assist amputees in the very near future by learning quickly from input from the user to make considerably more functional artificial limbs.
Calling them brightest seems overly glossy.
The US did this quite a bit, especially during the height of the Cold War. In fact you go could so far as to say that America's elite schools operate (or did at least then) as intellectual feeders for the defense industry.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/
(Ninja edited to add the top paragraph...)
To say they are fervent about righting the wrongs and perceived wrongs of the past is an understatement. It's pretty much a driving force of life with many people. It's a powerful dynamic. And it's one that's held close to the chest by Chinese students studying here in the US but in China it's freely talked about, written about, and taken for granted as the right thing.
On our (the west) side we also have racism and nationalism. But I think our more diverse (talking about points of view, not race here) and more activist anti-racism voices are a tempering force that China lacks.
Relating this to weaponization of AI, I think people like Stuart Russell are naive to think that watching Slaughterbots would give these students pause. On the contrary, it would excite them, because it's showing exactly the kind of thing they would be delighted to develop. Not that I know these students, but I'm aware how China drills bitterness into its people about their past humiliations, and uses this to develop racist nationalism. Pretty scary.
> China drills bitterness into its people about their past humiliations, and uses this to develop racist nationalism
I don't believe you meant to, but you crossed into nationalistic and racial flamewar with this comment. Imagine how it must feel to read something like this if you're on the receiving end. It's surprising how many of the replies below managed to remain thoughtful. When I read those comments and compare them to yours, it's clear who the model HN users are in this case.
I don't think you were being malicious, I think you underestimated the difference between musing in a personal conversation and broadcasting to potentially millions of people. For example, it isn't enough to protest that you didn't mean all Chinese, just the ones who <insert caveat here>. That is far too crude to undo the impact such claims make on the ones who are being categorized. If you can imagine yourself in that position, this is not hard to see; yet it is hard to imagine, because we're mostly so certain that none of it could ever be justified in our own case, so it feels like no big deal.
From my perspective, I didn't really see it that way. Like any country, the history curriculum focuses on China's history, focusing primarily on ancient history (pre-Qing dynasty) for 3 semesters with one semester of modern Chinese history (Qing to present). While there certainly was a nationalistic tendency in many topics I would regard the information as historically accurate (as compared to courses about east Asian history here in the US). And in reality, my many friends in China with whom I've maintained contact over the years do not have this sort of mentality and are against censorship and much of the nationalistic messaging.
Another interesting note that people here have no knowledge of is professors in China are often times anti-CCP. Many professors take this to the extreme and in papers will often just give a bad grade if it mentions any good policy by the CCP.
On a semi-related note, the comments many make here on HN about China make me extremely uncomfortable. Not because they touch on sensitive topics but because they smear an entire population of people as liars, thieves, and mindless followers. Replace the word "China" and "Chinese" with "Italy" and "Italian" in many comments and they could have been written back in the Ellis Island days.
When you notice examples of this, we'd appreciate it if you (or anyone) would email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can at least post moderating comments in the thread. We can't come close to seeing all the comments, and sometimes I notice wretched stuff days later that it pains me to have missed at the time.
Except that's not what I said or meant. Yet you felt the need to put it in quotes.
> China has cultivated in its people a very troubling mental complex centered on national pride and driven by the Century of Humiliation.
I’d say this is correct to a small extent — the history lessons in particular, took that stance when it’s covering contents about Chinese history from late Qing dynasty to the end of WW2. But the education also renders China as a peaceful nation, and the rise of China would benefit the entire world, which majority of the Chinese population agrees.
> To say they are fervent about righting the wrongs and perceived wrongs of the past is an understatement
It would be a correct statement if “righting the wrong” simply means “making China a great country again” so that “centuries of humiliation would never happen again”. Yes majority of Chinese citizens do have national pride, not unlike people any other country I’ve seen. Except maybe some extreme nationalists, most Chinese citizens would love to see China becoming stronger peacefully and be helpful to under-developed parts of the world.
> But I think our more diverse (talking about points of view, not race here) and more activist anti-racism voices are a tempering force that China lacks.
There are very little discussion about racism in China compared to US, simply because it’s less relevant. - Most Chinese don’t ever interact with a different race. But diversity in oppinions in other topics are very common. I’d say it’s virtually impossible to keep a billion citizens on the same page.
Just as an example, at the core of China’s “nationalism education” (don’t know what should I call it) is the anti-Japanese war which was part of WW2. Like South Korea, plenty of Chinese hate Japan for not acknowledging the war crimes they’ve done and trying to erase those facts from their history books. There had been several movement to boycott Japanese products in the past two decades. At the same time, Japanese culture actually have a huge influence in China, especially among young people. Japan is also one of the most popular foreign destinations Chinese people would love to travel to.
All the dynasties founded in the region, no matter if it was mostly Han people or minority groups, are considered part of China's history now. Just that Han had much higher weight in history books.
In a modern context, the main theme from textbooks is that all the minority groups live peacefully together and united as one nation, no matter what the history is. This is mostly true in reality, except maybe a small number of people in the west might want separation. You can find people from all minority groups living in large cities in the east of China, where the economy is most advanced. They mostly appear not much different from Han people, even though they might still carry some traditions from their own culture. Sometimes Han people might get curious when they meet someone from a minority group, but mostly they won't treat them any differently.
Being a part minority group is generally a good thing in China -> Among other things, they get bonus points in college entrance exams, which is a very big deal for vast majority of Chinese.
And that is the mentality difference between the US and China. US (having no real enemies) citizens see development of these weapons as potentially being used against its own citizens. Whereas Chinese citizens sees these weapons being to protect themselves from external threats.
There are hundreds of thousands of Chinese students in the US whose view on nationalism differs from individual to individual. Not only is the characterization of a purported hidden motif not warranted, it is reminiscent of Yellow Peril.
Nationalism is certainly alive in China. But Chinese foreign policy is only assertive only in its immediate periphery. To think that they are harboring this deep seeded grudge against the West that would threaten our physical safety is ludicrous.
This is a good point which seems to hold for now, at least with regard to exertion of military force. It’s mostly defensive although there is disagreement about the boundaries of what is to be defended.
Longer term though there are concerning matters like the extension of predatory loans to African governments in exchange for mineral and other development rights. Ironically similar to some of the abuses China suffered in its past.
If China were staying 'beneath' the west, like they're 'supposed to', we wouldn't have scare articles every week in the economist and the NYT, and we wouldn't have this comment at the top of the thread.
You're demonizing them as scary others and proving the point of hardliners there.
She may have been a bit insane - but, generally, it dawned on me what students in China must be being taught in their homes and at history class. And, yet, tying into this article - the amount of Chinese students, studying at our universities, being taught subjects like AI that they can use to build weapons against us is growing at a superlinear rate.
I noticed Trump was considering banning Chinese from studying here and I've heard various arguments as to why we must allow them to do so, but none of them seem to me even remotely convincing to outweigh the increasingly apparent downsides that may come in the incipient future.
My, perhaps hyperbolic, conclusion is that we're displacing our own students, who may, granted, not be able to score as highly on the Gaokao, in order to line the pockets of a university bubble, and our knowledge that we're imparting may soon be used against us by a totalitarian, imperialistic society that has a cultivated hatred towards us. I hope that politicians take a more hawkish stance on this - even if some universities have to scale down.
I should mention she's certainly conflicted and aware of some inconsistencies in a good number of her beliefs, even if she generally defends them or changes the topic when they come up.
Though I'm not sure I agree with your suggested course of action.
I also have no prejudice towards Chinese people, but I do feel that it is time for Americans to unite, realize that their is still hatred in the world (much of which is cultural), and toughen back up.
Kind of like indentured servitude, right?
They also (presumably) pay full price for their education so "we" aren't educating them, they are educating themselves.
Chinese students have clearly had access to our job and research markets, but that has been changing with sinophobia, along with rising economic opportunity in China coupled with concerted efforts by the Chinese government to repatriate those educated here.
So, I am taking that information into account when I say the situation reduces to the conclusion that the pragmatic solution is to drastically reduce the amount studying here.
I don't think a ban would be a good idea, either. Probably the best outcome, in my estimation, would be for a bipartisan big brother to tap university heads on the shoulder and tell them to cut the inflow dramatically.
Or heck, just read the first couple chapters of the three body problem.
So from that perspective I don't understand why 'natch' is receiving so much protest here. Totalitarian regimes are as easy to predict as a linear function and the Chinese "government" is totalitarian. The goal is to maximize power by all means necessary and - to err on the side of caution - also all means available and obtainable.
Humanitarian concerns exclusively play a role in governments and societies where at least some level of democratic processes and transparency can be carried out.
The bottom line is - expect the worst.
I know what the Chinese government has been doing and I was born and raised in China. However, that doesn't make me the immoral, senseless and vengeful entity he is trying to portray in his comment.
I know it's easy to generalize a certain group of people with whatever you hear from the news or read on the Internet, especially if you've not had too much meaningful interactions with individuals from that group. So I don't blame him, as I was somewhat similar before I came to the US and get to know the US people.
Secondly, nobody is immoral, nobody is vengeful or senseless - but having said that - the enemies of the state of course do not deserve moral standards as they don't adhere by those standards themselves ... "just watch the news if you want to know how many children they killed with their latest terror attack!".
The truth is - everybody loves slaughter bots as long as the right people get slaughtered - and who is that? Well, for the majority it's those labelled bad in the information sources they consume ... and are Chinese news independent? No, they aren't.
The Americans and Israelis love their drones - which aren't philosophically different from slaughter bots - and as long as those remove terrorists or taliban nobody would question those.
I hope you didn't use the word "other" to imply the US has a policy of "peaceful globalism". That would be wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin
One interesting thing: since most nations are tiny, and they are so utterly dependent on playing ninjitsu against others because they have no hard power ... the though doesn't occur to them. It becomes part of the national identity.
Canada->US Scotland->England Nordics (i.e. Norwegian)->Germany/France
We're a little bit more meek (for better or worse) by default, not just in geopolitics, but culturally as well.
Peace is kept through a balance of power.