The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. William C. Hannas \u2013 professor at Georgetown University and lead analyst at the Center for Security and Emerging Technologies (CSET) \u2013 and Huey-Meei Chang, CSET\u2019s senior China S&T specialist and co-editor with Dr. Hannas of \u201cChinese Power and Artificial Intelligence: Perspectives and Challenges\u201d (Routledge 2023) \u2013 is the 488th in \u201cThe Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.\u201d<\/p>\n
Identify salient myths and misinformation about China\u2019s artificial general intelligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Myths and misinformation about China\u2019s quest for artificial general intelligence are as common as the misinformation \u201cgenerated\u201d by today\u2019s large generative models. We\u2019ll address a few such misconceptions, the first being the Chinese term for \u201cAGI\u201d itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cArtificial general Intelligence\u201d is understood loosely as \u201cthe ability of an intelligent agent to learn any intellectual task that a human can.\u201d Setting aside complications such as differences in human cognitive abilities and the difficulty of defining \u201cG\u201d or general intelligence itself, the concept and its associated term are broadly understood.<\/p>\n
What about the Chinese term? Ben Goertzel<\/a>, an AGI proponent who spent years in China, is credited with popularizing the term \u201cAGI\u201d in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, his colleague Pei Wang<\/a> proposed the term \u901a\u7528\u4eba\u5de5\u667a\u80fd \u2013 literally \u201cgeneral artificial intelligence\u201d \u2013 to reference the same concept. Goertzel acknowledged later that he preferred the word-order of Wang\u2019s term but stuck with \u201cAGI\u201d because he felt the acronym \u201cGAI\u201d might be misconstrued.<\/p>\n Now a lot has been said about differences between Western and Chinese visions of AI. And there are major divergences in China\u2019s approach to AI that we will get into. But we shouldn\u2019t get hung up on psycholinguistic nuances. Our team has studied thousands of Chinese AI documents and finds that the two terms \u2013 Chinese and English \u2013 are used interchangeably. In fact, it\u2019s common to see \u201cAGI\u201d in parentheses after the Chinese term. So, let\u2019s put that issue to rest. Both sides are talking the same endgame.<\/p>\n Examine the myth that China\u2019s AGI progress can (or should) be defined by Western frontier models.\u00a0<\/p>\n The next myth is more insidious, namely, the belief that we can gauge China\u2019s progress toward AGI along a continuum defined by Western \u201cfrontier models.\u201d<\/p>\n While many AI experts worldwide discount the likelihood of large language models reaching human-level intelligence, Western companies working toward AGI nonetheless regard them as the primary path and have sequestered enormous resources based on this belief that more of the same will lead to the Holy Grail.<\/p>\n China, for its part, does not see large models as the only way to the Buddha. \u201cBrain-inspired\u201d (\u7c7b\u8111) AI is a recognized discipline in China with its own funding codes, government support, and a development scheme called \u201cone body, two wings\u201d (\u4e00\u4f53\u4e24\u7ffc) that uses commercial profits to fund exploration. We surveyed<\/a> 850 Chinese AI scientists on attitudes toward brain-inspired AI and 84 percent of the responders stated BI-AI would have more impact than other competing approaches to AGI.<\/p>\n China also views whole-brain mapping as another path to AGI. Xi Jinping himself is on record endorsing \u201cconnectomics<\/a>\u201d (\u8111\u8fde\u63a5\u56fe\u8c31) \u2013 he used the technical term \u2013 as foundational for building intelligent technology. In addition, China invests in brain-computer interfaces not only for therapeutics but as a path to cognitive enhancement<\/a>, the goals being affect control and AGI.<\/p>\n Finally, there is China\u2019s work in embodied (\u5177\u8eab) or physical AI, regarded by top ranking Chinese scientists as a likely path to AGI. (This is the subject of a forthcoming CSET paper).<\/p>\n Given these developments, it\u2019s fair to say that the DeepSeek surprise opened Western eyes but also closed them. While we now take Chinese AI seriously, we imagine that large statistical models \u2013 DeepSeek being one of them \u2013 are the only Chinese path to AGI, when there are several typologically different approaches seriously pursued there.<\/p>\n Analyze the myth about China\u2019s AI applications development and ambitions of dominating the global AGI competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n This leads to a third myth making the rounds, namely, the notion that China is more concerned with developing AI applications than winning an AGI race, unlike the West, which is focused on the latter.<\/p>\n The putative lesson is we should focus more on apps, less on building a nationwide archipelago of data centers, to stay competitive \u2013 as if the two goals were mutually exclusive. China sees no such contradiction. Rather, it believes that investing in physical AI is another way to get to AGI. That is, China\u2019s pursuit of applications-oriented AI is meant to advance the country economically while paving the way to an AI \u201cfirst mover advantage\u201c (\u5148\u53d1\u4f18\u52bf)\u3002<\/p>\n And it doesn\u2019t stop there. Credible Chinese scientists see AGI leading to ASI or \u201cartificial superintelligence\u201d \u2013 AI that surpasses human intelligence and can bootstrap itself to higher levels without human intervention. Alibaba\u2019s CEO Eddie Wu Yongming, for example, went public recently evangelizing this hypothetical development, arguing that AGI is \u201cnot AI\u2019s endpoint, but a new beginning<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Other top Chinese figures have spoken similarly.<\/p>\n Elucidate the broader context of Chinese AGI in the China-U.S. artificial intelligence race.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recent op-eds<\/a> comparing<\/a> the United States\u2019 and China\u2019s AI programs fault the former for its narrow focus on AGI while praising China for its practical success in applying AI throughout the whole of society.<\/p>\n While accurate in itself \u2013 America\u2019s focus on large models may not lead to AGI and China is outpacing the U.S. in AI infusion \u2013 the argument is a false dichotomy, as China has by no means de-emphasized its state-sponsored goal to achieve AGI. Instead, it is and has been pursuing both projects simultaneously.<\/p>\n While known for its practical uses<\/a> of AI, China, as noted, invests in not one but multiple paths to AGI, including the \u201cfrontier\u201d models favored in the West and other, wholly different approaches such as \u201cembodiment\u201d described above.<\/p>\n Chinese scientists<\/a> are aware<\/a> of the salutary effects<\/a> of embodiment and, hence, see no contradiction between practical AI and AGI development. The one supports the other. So, if there is a lesson to learn from China, it\u2019s not to take all eggs from one basket and put them into another but to adopt multiple complementary approaches. And then back them nationally.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, what should be the priority for the United States and its allies?\u00a0<\/p>\n Given the stakes, one might suppose that the U.S. and its allies are staffing a comprehensive \u201cwatchboard\u201d to monitor what is happening in China AI and other advanced technologies, on the premise that good policy depends on good intelligence. Regrettably, no such mechanism exists, inside or outside the U.S. government, although it\u2019s clear it should be a national priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6744,3013,8968,387,11900,19497,19498,19499,19496,980],"class_list":{"0":"post-29800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-agi","8":"tag-agi","9":"tag-artificial-general-intelligence","10":"tag-artificial-general-intelligence-agi","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-china-ai","13":"tag-china-ai-development-plan","14":"tag-china-artificial-intelligence","15":"tag-china-embodied-ai","16":"tag-east-asia","17":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}