Notes
Alpha Go vs Ke Jie in 2017 was China’s Sputnik moment inspiring Chinese gov. + startup entrepreneurs + VC investors to put huge effort into ramping up Chinese AI ecosystem (R&D + commercial + military)
- Feb 2019 article to understand Chinese AI strategy
Chinese startup world is extremely cut-throat, contrasts sharply with more “tame” SV ecosystem
- Copying other startups’ unique features is acceptable
- Work life balance is non-existent
- Startups must find ways to differentiate themselves from others even if it means under-handed tactics are used
China vs US in battle for global AI dominance in coming decades: each has their own adv/disadv. No clear winner.
Instead of UBI, KFL believes in initiatives that promote compassion
- UBI is a temporary fix which helps keep the tech elites in power while the tech-illiterate masses suffer from ongoing AI-induced unemployment
- “Social investment stipend” allows creation of jobs that require empathy which AI cannot replace
- “Service-focused impact investing” focuses on investing in jobs that are hard for AI to replicate (i.e. require empathy)
Highlights summary
- Ingredients for AI dominance
“Harnessing the power of AI today—the “electricity” of the twenty-first century—requires four analogous inputs: abundant data, hungry entrepreneurs, AI scientists, and an AI-friendly policy environment.“
- Chinese AI ecosystem
“China’s successful internet entrepreneurs have risen to where they are by conquering the most cutthroat competitive environment on the planet.”
“The only way to survive this battle is to constantly improve one’s product but also to innovate on your business model and build a “moat” around your company. If one’s only edge is a single novel idea, that idea will invariably be copied, your key employees will be poached, and you’ll be driven out of business by VC-subsidized competitors. This rough-and-tumble environment makes a strong contrast to Silicon Valley, where copying is stigmatized and many companies are allowed to coast on the basis of one original idea or lucky break. That lack of competition can lead to a certain level of complacency, with entrepreneurs failing to explore all the possible iterations of their first innovation. The messy markets and dirty tricks of China’s “copycat” era produced some questionable companies, but they also incubated a generation of the world’s most nimble, savvy, and nose-to-the-grindstone entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs will be the secret sauce that helps China become the first country to cash in on AI’s age of implementation.”
“China’s alternate digital universe now creates and captures oceans of new data about the real world. That wealth of information on users—their location every second of the day, how they commute, what foods they like, when and where they buy groceries and beer—will prove invaluable in the era of AI implementation. It gives these companies a detailed treasure trove of these users’ daily habits, one that can be combined with deep-learning algorithms to offer tailor-made services ranging from financial auditing to city planning. It also vastly outstrips what Silicon Valley’s leading companies can decipher from your searches, “likes,” or occasional online purchases. This unparalleled trove of real-world data will give Chinese companies a major leg up in developing AI-driven services.”
“Putting all these pieces together—the dual transitions into the age of implementation and the age of data, China’s world-class entrepreneurs and proactive government—I believe that China will soon match or even overtake the United States in developing and deploying artificial intelligence.”
- Predictions about impact of AI
“Based on the current trends in technology advancement and adoption, I predict that within fifteen years, artificial intelligence will technically be able to replace around 40 to 50 percent of jobs in the United States.“
“The AI world order will combine winner-take-all economics with an unprecedented concentration of wealth in the hands of a few companies in China and the United States. This, I believe, is the real underlying threat posed by artificial intelligence: tremendous social disorder and political collapse stemming from widespread unemployment and gaping inequality.”
- AI is primarily used nowadays to improve advertising/recommendation
“Internet AI is largely about using AI algorithms as recommendation engines: systems that learn our personal preferences and then serve up content hand-picked for us.”
- Current SV/tech response to AI-induced job losses is short-sighted
“Many of the proposed technical solutions for AI-induced job losses coming out of Silicon Valley fall into three buckets: retraining workers, reducing work hours, or redistributing income.”
- What about UBI?
“While I support certain guarantees that basic needs will be met, I also believe embracing a UBI as a cure-all for the crisis we face is a mistake and a massive missed opportunity.”
“UBI isn’t a constructive solution that leverages AI to build a better world. It’s a painkiller, something to numb and sedate the people who have been hurt by the adoption of AI. And that numbing effect goes both ways: not only does it ease the pain for those displaced by technology; it also assuages the conscience of those who do the displacing.”
- How KFL imagines traditional jobs today can evolve in AI-enabled tomorrow
“Traditional doctors could instead evolve into a new profession, one that I’ll call a “compassionate caregiver.” These medical professionals would combine the skills of a nurse, medical technician, social worker, and even psychologist. Compassionate caregivers would be trained not just in operating and understanding the diagnostic tools but also in communicating with patients, consoling them in times of trauma, and emotionally supporting them throughout their treatment. Instead of simply informing patients of their objectively optimized chances of survival, they could share encouraging stories, saying “Kai-Fu had the same lymphoma as you and he survived, so I believe you can too.””
“As a venture-capital investor, I see a particularly strong role for a new kind of impact investing. I foresee a venture ecosystem emerging that views the creation of humanistic service-sector jobs as a good in and of itself. It will steer money into human-focused service projects that can scale up and hire large numbers of people: lactation consultants for postnatal care, trained coaches for youth sports, gatherers of family oral histories, nature guides at national parks, or conversation partners for the elderly.”
“Service-focused impact investing, however, will need to be different. It will need to accept linear returns when coupled with meaningful job creation.”
- Social investment stipend. Not UBI
I propose we explore the creation not of a UBI but of what I call a social investment stipend. The stipend would be a decent government salary given to those who invest their time and energy in those activities that promote a kind, compassionate, and creative society. These would include three broad categories: care work, community service, and education.
- A new age of AI requires a shift in thinking about human’s role in society (more than just variables to optimize output). AI can allow for freedom to focus on building a more compasionate society.
“As we transition from the industrial age to the AI age, we will need to move away from a mindset that equates work with life or treats humans as variables in a grand productivity optimization algorithm. Instead, we must move toward a new culture that values human love, service, and compassion more than ever before.“
“I have a different vision. I don’t want to live in a society divided into technological castes, where the AI elite live in a cloistered world of almost unimaginable wealth, relying on minimal handouts to keep the unemployed masses sedate in their place. I want to create a system that provides for all members of society, but one that also uses the wealth generated by AI to build a society that is more compassionate, loving, and ultimately human.”
“If AI ever allows us to truly understand ourselves, it will not be because these algorithms captured the mechanical essence of the human mind. It will be because they liberated us to forget about optimizations and to instead focus on what truly makes us human: loving and being loved.”