Chinese singularity
Ben Herzel, in his article, discusses the possibility of launching the Singularity in China and concludes that a multitude of cultural, political and economic trends make this event very likely.
Dr. Hugo de Garis, the father of evolving hardware and a brave AI researcher, moved to China a few years ago and now heads the Artificial Brain Lab at Xiamen University . He is convinced that the Singularity in the spirit of Vinge and Kurzweil can happen later in this century, and that China is the most likely place for the Strong AI ( FIC ) at the human level and other critical technologies that underlie the emergence of the Singularity.
As Hugo argues this: “The population of China is 1.3 billion. The population of the United States is 0.3 billion. In China, the average economic growth rate is 10% over the past 3 decades. In the USA - 3%. The Chinese government is firmly committed to serious investments in the latest technology. From the above prerequisites, one can essentially prove, as a mathematical theorem, that China will be in a superior position for a decade or so to offer higher salaries (in rich southeastern cities) for creative, eminent Westerners to come to China create artificial brains - much more than the United States and Europe can offer. With the most creative AI developers of the planet in China, it will almost inevitably be that the world's first artificial intelligence will have Chinese roots. ”
(I’ll reveal the cards: I spent a month at Hugo’s Xiamen Laboratory this summer, and Hugo and I recently received information that the Chinese National Science Foundation approved a grant to sponsor his laboratory to continue our joint research in cognitive robotics aimed at giving a humanoid robot Nao opportunity to learn, make decisions and communicate in English and Chinese. I even discussed their own drive to Xiamen . So I can not promise great objectivity in this thread ... and do not Otori personal passion was the reason that I asked different people involved in the study of AI and software technology in China, whether Chinese Singularity.)
The first destination in my search for the truth about the Chinese Singularity was a visit to the FIC researcher, Dr. Pei Wan from Temple University , who has been living in the US for a long time, but visiting her home in China every summer. Pei expressed a softer version of Hugo’s opinion: “I think China is one of the most likely places (although not only it is one) where the first real strong intellectual system will be created ... Considering China’s population and education level, its chances are quite great ... there are solid intellectual resources to make FID a reality "
')
Pei notes that "one of the main advantages of China is the absence of strong skepticism about past failures in creating FIS." The USA and Japan have spent large sums on the development of AI in recent decades with a disappointing result and, as a result, they are very skeptical about AI compared to other areas of research. China has never had this experience and makes the first serious attempt to create AI in an era blessed with more powerful computers and deeper knowledge of thinking and computer science. Pei also noted that the academic community in China is leaning toward accumulative research instead of risky attempts to change the paradigm. It seems that this was still true in terms of AI: Chinese AI developers have made important innovations in many areas, including fuzzy systems, genetic algorithms, machine translation and space-time logic, but not a single revolution has been launched in AI.
Dr. Min Jiang, an assistant professor at the Artificial Brain Laboratory, specializing in AI-thinking and formal logic, outlined a factor balancing this conservatism: “In many areas, China is now catching up. But perhaps this is part of the reason why China wants to spend research money on advanced development. This can be seen as a “tuition fee” and contribution to the future. Even if some projects fail, we can learn many things from this experience. ” Sponsoring Hugo's lab looks like evidence of this perspective. And the experience of experimentation is precisely what will be necessary for the creation of FIS and other indigenous technologies that open the way to the Singularity.
Ming offers a closer look at China in particular: “I think the most important advantage (or disadvantage) is the [political and state] system. If the ruling circles decide that the project is critical, we do it with the efforts of the whole country: for example, the atomic bomb, the spacecraft. ” Another example is the First Solar initiative, launched in September 2009, a ten-year project aimed at covering 65 square meters. km Inner Mongolia has solar panels that generate 2 billion watts of energy, enough to light up three million homes. When the Chinese government really wants to do something, it thinks big.
This combination - the desire to experiment with new ideas and make massive investments in selected undertakings - is very intriguing. If the Chinese sponsor an experimental singular project, and it will lead to impressive enough results to interest the ruling circles, exciting things can happen. This is exactly what Hugo’s mind, with his proposal for “KUIM”, which he voiced at the Eastern Technology Forum in Shanghai this October: “What I am proposing is the creation of the Chinese government“ KUIM ”(China’s Artificial Brain Authority) in over the next 5-10 years, consisting of thousands of scientists and engineers, to design artificial brains for the Chinese domestic robots industry and other applications. The KUIM will do for the artificial brain what CNSU ( China National Space Administration ) is doing for space now, that is, hiring thousands of scientists and engineers to design and control rockets for China’s space needs. ” Insanely ambitious? Maybe. But the same idea is to cover 65 square meters. km Mongolia solar panels.
I have found that Western entrepreneurs who manage technology firms in China have the most skeptical voices regarding the Chinese Singularity. I carefully asked two such people. Both singular optimists and both worried that their opinions would remain anonymous in order to avoid harming their business in China. Both rated the chances of launching a Chinese singularity at less than 5%, and they gave similar reasons: they believe that Chinese engineers as a whole are “below the average in terms of problem solving and creative thinking,” “very conservative, not willing to do anything decisively or with a proven track record. ” One of them also noted that “local outstanding talents are interested in working for American, European, Japanese or Korean (in that order) firms more than for Chinese ones. So the best chance for a breakthrough in AI is here in third-party research efforts. ”
I have heard this complaint about the “lack of creativity” before, but it goes against my personal experience at the Xiamen University. Here, if I came across any conservatism, I also met some creative and bright young professors and students. In my experience, researchers in China are just as inventive as elsewhere, but there are subtle sociocultural nuances with different meanings in corporate and university contexts. Chinese culture, in its current incarnation, tends to create social structures that suppress rather than inspire the expression of personal creativity. She also has no tendency to support Western-style teamwork. There is a saying that "one Chinese is as strong as a dragon, but three Chinese cannot compare with a beetle." These are real problems that can nevertheless be circumvented with care and using different techniques depending on the context.
It should be understood that in relation to personal creativity as well as other issues, Chinese history was highly cyclical. In his controversial book "1434", Gavin Menzies claims that the Italian Renaissance was launched by a fleet of Chinese ships that sailed to Italy and shared advanced knowledge, including encyclopedias, from which Leonardo da Vinci indirectly received many of his famous illustrations of mechanical devices, flying machines and so on. True or not, Menzies provides irrefutable evidence of advanced Chinese engineering and science in this period, before the change of government in Beijing ended the era of wild invention and research and brought a new era of conservatism to China. In my opinion, the Chinese “cultural DNA” has an abundance of innovation and creativity, but one must be careful to distinguish the stable characteristics of Chinese culture from those that are cyclically changing. The pendulum of Chinese culture swings in a wide arc.
In the context of corporate software development, there is a strategy for working with counterproductive cultural trends and identifying Chinese creative abilities - an adaptation of “flexible” methods of software development. The 2008 article in InfoQ summarizes the experience of five Chinese firms that adopted the Scrum development methodology - a very dynamic, team-based approach to software development that requires constant flexible creativity from the proportion of participants. Three firms found the approach successful, two did not. Those who did not find any advantages explained that the development teams or managers understood the formalities, but not the essence of the flexible approach - the cultural gap was too great. And this certainly refers to the reason why Chinese universities are so eager to receive Western professors such as Hugo de Garis. It's not just the research ideas that Westerners bring, this is a different intuition, experience and habits of conducting laboratory research and scientific programs. In this light, Hugo's emphasis on the arrival of "creative, eminent Westerners ... to China to create artificial brains" can be understood. If China can take advantage of its economic growth and openness to the latest research directions to recruit a sufficient number of Western workhorses, then influential events can occur. Imagine a situation in which each Chinese city has several laboratories focused on the development of singular technologies, in which leading Western developers are working hard to educate young Chinese scientists on the Western model of creating creative research and development teams. In this highly plausible scenario, the prospects for the Chinese Singularity do not seem so far-fetched.
As well as FIC, one should pay attention to the distinction between Western and Chinese attitudes towards another essential technology of the future: life extension. Westerners tend to talk about immortality with skepticism and even moral condemnation — after all, according to standard Christian history, God wants us to die and go to heaven. But the Chinese memplex thousands of years ate Taoist stories about immortality. Traditional Chinese methods of attaining immortality are often difficult: for example, in Taoist yoga, there are techniques associated with lifelong celibacy and meditation, focused on the birth of the ultimately immortal self through the crown of the head. Many Chinese will be very happy with the pills of immortality or life extension, which will give the same effects at a lower price and with greater reliability. So far, this trend has not led to proper funding for life extension research, but there is certainly potential - as well as economic motivation, since China will face a serious aging of the population in 2025-2030, similar to what Europe is experiencing now.
David Chambers of the Methuselah Foundation , arguing in 2006 at the Tomorrow's People's Forum at Oxford University , compared the Western and Chinese attitudes to extending life as follows: “The Europeans do not hope for a better future, rather a refined version of the present. There is a distrust of revolutionary ideas ... [But] while Europeans and Americans have their own different prejudices about ethics and the consequences of a new biology, China does not have them. Pei Xuetao of the Beijing Institute of Transfusiology [a leading institution in the field of stem cell research and restorative medicine] stated very clearly [in his speech at the Forum] that China is open to doing business. ” Along with research aimed at treating cancer and other diseases, Xuetao and his colleagues made important discoveries in the field of cellular aging and apoptosis, which help to understand the genetic relationships that cause us to age.
These different approaches to immortality can be associated with attitudes towards FIC. Western skepticism about AI can be associated not only with previous fiasco, but also with deep cultural problems. The same Christian memes that tell us that we must die and go to heaven also convince us that the machines can never really become intelligent, because they lack an immortal soul. Even Changle Chou, the dean who oversees the Artificial Brain de Garis Project, regularly refers to the work of Hugo as the “Project of a Reasonable Robot”. In Chinese culture, there is little from the Western subconscious resistance to thinking machines and immortal people, and this cultural difference may manifest itself in the next decade in an unpredictable way.
Another cultural difference to keep in mind is that analyzing progress in China by drawing straight or exponential lines often does not make sense. Progress in China often corresponds to the biological concept of "intermittent equilibrium" - long periods of relative stability are interrupted by surprising and unexpected changes. The cultural revolution and the recent transition to market “socialism with Chinese characteristics” illustrate this phenomenon - as well as the sudden onset and cessation of Chinese global navigation in the 1400s and a dozen other cases from China’s long history. It is easy to imagine the only technological breakthrough catalyzing one of these sudden changes in the near future. It may be an intelligent robotics, it may be an extension of life or something else wild and unforeseen. When this article was in the process of editing, I heard startling conversations about the very significant funds allocated by Beijing for a project called the head-brain tool (three Chinese characters) designed to improve neural functions and, therefore, speed up human learning. I do not know enough about it to judge the viability of the project, but if the case burns out, then it can be called a thing that can shake the balance of any nation!
The likelihood of launching the Chinese Singularity may sow fear in the hearts of American nationalists or Eurocentists, but it is obvious that there is not much difference in which nation will make a decisive breakthrough. In the modern scientific world, “information wants to be free” —and since the most likely path to the Chinese Singularity lies through the cooperation of Chinese and Western researchers, the chances for an isolated Chinese Singularity that uniquely serves Chinese national interests seem to be rather low. Work in the Xiamen Laboratory of Hugo is based on open source software development. It develops together with the work of AI programmers outside of China and it freely enters the international research community.
So what's the verdict? Given the lack of statements from China regarding FIS and the extension of life, its powerful economic growth, its large number of smart and hardworking young scientists, its desire to import Western key developers - will the singularity be launched in China? I will hand over the last words to two creative young scientists from Xiamen University.
Min Jiang said the phrase I found intriguing, taking into account China’s obsession with its 5,000-year-old culture: “China now looks like a young youth, and, as you know, eighteen years old is an age full of curiosity and fantasies about the future”!
And Zhuytin Lien, Ph.D. from the Artificial Brain Lab, who is engaged in a multilingual natural understanding of language, speech generation and dialogue, put it more directly: “In China, the best answer to any question is“ maybe ”.
Ben Herzel is the CEO of Novamente and Biomind , companies involved in AI, a Ph.D. in mathematics, a writer, a philosopher, a musician, and a comprehensive futuristic maniac.
Dr. Hugo de Garis, the father of evolving hardware and a brave AI researcher, moved to China a few years ago and now heads the Artificial Brain Lab at Xiamen University . He is convinced that the Singularity in the spirit of Vinge and Kurzweil can happen later in this century, and that China is the most likely place for the Strong AI ( FIC ) at the human level and other critical technologies that underlie the emergence of the Singularity.
As Hugo argues this: “The population of China is 1.3 billion. The population of the United States is 0.3 billion. In China, the average economic growth rate is 10% over the past 3 decades. In the USA - 3%. The Chinese government is firmly committed to serious investments in the latest technology. From the above prerequisites, one can essentially prove, as a mathematical theorem, that China will be in a superior position for a decade or so to offer higher salaries (in rich southeastern cities) for creative, eminent Westerners to come to China create artificial brains - much more than the United States and Europe can offer. With the most creative AI developers of the planet in China, it will almost inevitably be that the world's first artificial intelligence will have Chinese roots. ”
(I’ll reveal the cards: I spent a month at Hugo’s Xiamen Laboratory this summer, and Hugo and I recently received information that the Chinese National Science Foundation approved a grant to sponsor his laboratory to continue our joint research in cognitive robotics aimed at giving a humanoid robot Nao opportunity to learn, make decisions and communicate in English and Chinese. I even discussed their own drive to Xiamen . So I can not promise great objectivity in this thread ... and do not Otori personal passion was the reason that I asked different people involved in the study of AI and software technology in China, whether Chinese Singularity.)
The first destination in my search for the truth about the Chinese Singularity was a visit to the FIC researcher, Dr. Pei Wan from Temple University , who has been living in the US for a long time, but visiting her home in China every summer. Pei expressed a softer version of Hugo’s opinion: “I think China is one of the most likely places (although not only it is one) where the first real strong intellectual system will be created ... Considering China’s population and education level, its chances are quite great ... there are solid intellectual resources to make FID a reality "
')
Pei notes that "one of the main advantages of China is the absence of strong skepticism about past failures in creating FIS." The USA and Japan have spent large sums on the development of AI in recent decades with a disappointing result and, as a result, they are very skeptical about AI compared to other areas of research. China has never had this experience and makes the first serious attempt to create AI in an era blessed with more powerful computers and deeper knowledge of thinking and computer science. Pei also noted that the academic community in China is leaning toward accumulative research instead of risky attempts to change the paradigm. It seems that this was still true in terms of AI: Chinese AI developers have made important innovations in many areas, including fuzzy systems, genetic algorithms, machine translation and space-time logic, but not a single revolution has been launched in AI.
Dr. Min Jiang, an assistant professor at the Artificial Brain Laboratory, specializing in AI-thinking and formal logic, outlined a factor balancing this conservatism: “In many areas, China is now catching up. But perhaps this is part of the reason why China wants to spend research money on advanced development. This can be seen as a “tuition fee” and contribution to the future. Even if some projects fail, we can learn many things from this experience. ” Sponsoring Hugo's lab looks like evidence of this perspective. And the experience of experimentation is precisely what will be necessary for the creation of FIS and other indigenous technologies that open the way to the Singularity.
Ming offers a closer look at China in particular: “I think the most important advantage (or disadvantage) is the [political and state] system. If the ruling circles decide that the project is critical, we do it with the efforts of the whole country: for example, the atomic bomb, the spacecraft. ” Another example is the First Solar initiative, launched in September 2009, a ten-year project aimed at covering 65 square meters. km Inner Mongolia has solar panels that generate 2 billion watts of energy, enough to light up three million homes. When the Chinese government really wants to do something, it thinks big.
This combination - the desire to experiment with new ideas and make massive investments in selected undertakings - is very intriguing. If the Chinese sponsor an experimental singular project, and it will lead to impressive enough results to interest the ruling circles, exciting things can happen. This is exactly what Hugo’s mind, with his proposal for “KUIM”, which he voiced at the Eastern Technology Forum in Shanghai this October: “What I am proposing is the creation of the Chinese government“ KUIM ”(China’s Artificial Brain Authority) in over the next 5-10 years, consisting of thousands of scientists and engineers, to design artificial brains for the Chinese domestic robots industry and other applications. The KUIM will do for the artificial brain what CNSU ( China National Space Administration ) is doing for space now, that is, hiring thousands of scientists and engineers to design and control rockets for China’s space needs. ” Insanely ambitious? Maybe. But the same idea is to cover 65 square meters. km Mongolia solar panels.
I have found that Western entrepreneurs who manage technology firms in China have the most skeptical voices regarding the Chinese Singularity. I carefully asked two such people. Both singular optimists and both worried that their opinions would remain anonymous in order to avoid harming their business in China. Both rated the chances of launching a Chinese singularity at less than 5%, and they gave similar reasons: they believe that Chinese engineers as a whole are “below the average in terms of problem solving and creative thinking,” “very conservative, not willing to do anything decisively or with a proven track record. ” One of them also noted that “local outstanding talents are interested in working for American, European, Japanese or Korean (in that order) firms more than for Chinese ones. So the best chance for a breakthrough in AI is here in third-party research efforts. ”
I have heard this complaint about the “lack of creativity” before, but it goes against my personal experience at the Xiamen University. Here, if I came across any conservatism, I also met some creative and bright young professors and students. In my experience, researchers in China are just as inventive as elsewhere, but there are subtle sociocultural nuances with different meanings in corporate and university contexts. Chinese culture, in its current incarnation, tends to create social structures that suppress rather than inspire the expression of personal creativity. She also has no tendency to support Western-style teamwork. There is a saying that "one Chinese is as strong as a dragon, but three Chinese cannot compare with a beetle." These are real problems that can nevertheless be circumvented with care and using different techniques depending on the context.
It should be understood that in relation to personal creativity as well as other issues, Chinese history was highly cyclical. In his controversial book "1434", Gavin Menzies claims that the Italian Renaissance was launched by a fleet of Chinese ships that sailed to Italy and shared advanced knowledge, including encyclopedias, from which Leonardo da Vinci indirectly received many of his famous illustrations of mechanical devices, flying machines and so on. True or not, Menzies provides irrefutable evidence of advanced Chinese engineering and science in this period, before the change of government in Beijing ended the era of wild invention and research and brought a new era of conservatism to China. In my opinion, the Chinese “cultural DNA” has an abundance of innovation and creativity, but one must be careful to distinguish the stable characteristics of Chinese culture from those that are cyclically changing. The pendulum of Chinese culture swings in a wide arc.
In the context of corporate software development, there is a strategy for working with counterproductive cultural trends and identifying Chinese creative abilities - an adaptation of “flexible” methods of software development. The 2008 article in InfoQ summarizes the experience of five Chinese firms that adopted the Scrum development methodology - a very dynamic, team-based approach to software development that requires constant flexible creativity from the proportion of participants. Three firms found the approach successful, two did not. Those who did not find any advantages explained that the development teams or managers understood the formalities, but not the essence of the flexible approach - the cultural gap was too great. And this certainly refers to the reason why Chinese universities are so eager to receive Western professors such as Hugo de Garis. It's not just the research ideas that Westerners bring, this is a different intuition, experience and habits of conducting laboratory research and scientific programs. In this light, Hugo's emphasis on the arrival of "creative, eminent Westerners ... to China to create artificial brains" can be understood. If China can take advantage of its economic growth and openness to the latest research directions to recruit a sufficient number of Western workhorses, then influential events can occur. Imagine a situation in which each Chinese city has several laboratories focused on the development of singular technologies, in which leading Western developers are working hard to educate young Chinese scientists on the Western model of creating creative research and development teams. In this highly plausible scenario, the prospects for the Chinese Singularity do not seem so far-fetched.
As well as FIC, one should pay attention to the distinction between Western and Chinese attitudes towards another essential technology of the future: life extension. Westerners tend to talk about immortality with skepticism and even moral condemnation — after all, according to standard Christian history, God wants us to die and go to heaven. But the Chinese memplex thousands of years ate Taoist stories about immortality. Traditional Chinese methods of attaining immortality are often difficult: for example, in Taoist yoga, there are techniques associated with lifelong celibacy and meditation, focused on the birth of the ultimately immortal self through the crown of the head. Many Chinese will be very happy with the pills of immortality or life extension, which will give the same effects at a lower price and with greater reliability. So far, this trend has not led to proper funding for life extension research, but there is certainly potential - as well as economic motivation, since China will face a serious aging of the population in 2025-2030, similar to what Europe is experiencing now.
David Chambers of the Methuselah Foundation , arguing in 2006 at the Tomorrow's People's Forum at Oxford University , compared the Western and Chinese attitudes to extending life as follows: “The Europeans do not hope for a better future, rather a refined version of the present. There is a distrust of revolutionary ideas ... [But] while Europeans and Americans have their own different prejudices about ethics and the consequences of a new biology, China does not have them. Pei Xuetao of the Beijing Institute of Transfusiology [a leading institution in the field of stem cell research and restorative medicine] stated very clearly [in his speech at the Forum] that China is open to doing business. ” Along with research aimed at treating cancer and other diseases, Xuetao and his colleagues made important discoveries in the field of cellular aging and apoptosis, which help to understand the genetic relationships that cause us to age.
These different approaches to immortality can be associated with attitudes towards FIC. Western skepticism about AI can be associated not only with previous fiasco, but also with deep cultural problems. The same Christian memes that tell us that we must die and go to heaven also convince us that the machines can never really become intelligent, because they lack an immortal soul. Even Changle Chou, the dean who oversees the Artificial Brain de Garis Project, regularly refers to the work of Hugo as the “Project of a Reasonable Robot”. In Chinese culture, there is little from the Western subconscious resistance to thinking machines and immortal people, and this cultural difference may manifest itself in the next decade in an unpredictable way.
Another cultural difference to keep in mind is that analyzing progress in China by drawing straight or exponential lines often does not make sense. Progress in China often corresponds to the biological concept of "intermittent equilibrium" - long periods of relative stability are interrupted by surprising and unexpected changes. The cultural revolution and the recent transition to market “socialism with Chinese characteristics” illustrate this phenomenon - as well as the sudden onset and cessation of Chinese global navigation in the 1400s and a dozen other cases from China’s long history. It is easy to imagine the only technological breakthrough catalyzing one of these sudden changes in the near future. It may be an intelligent robotics, it may be an extension of life or something else wild and unforeseen. When this article was in the process of editing, I heard startling conversations about the very significant funds allocated by Beijing for a project called the head-brain tool (three Chinese characters) designed to improve neural functions and, therefore, speed up human learning. I do not know enough about it to judge the viability of the project, but if the case burns out, then it can be called a thing that can shake the balance of any nation!
The likelihood of launching the Chinese Singularity may sow fear in the hearts of American nationalists or Eurocentists, but it is obvious that there is not much difference in which nation will make a decisive breakthrough. In the modern scientific world, “information wants to be free” —and since the most likely path to the Chinese Singularity lies through the cooperation of Chinese and Western researchers, the chances for an isolated Chinese Singularity that uniquely serves Chinese national interests seem to be rather low. Work in the Xiamen Laboratory of Hugo is based on open source software development. It develops together with the work of AI programmers outside of China and it freely enters the international research community.
So what's the verdict? Given the lack of statements from China regarding FIS and the extension of life, its powerful economic growth, its large number of smart and hardworking young scientists, its desire to import Western key developers - will the singularity be launched in China? I will hand over the last words to two creative young scientists from Xiamen University.
Min Jiang said the phrase I found intriguing, taking into account China’s obsession with its 5,000-year-old culture: “China now looks like a young youth, and, as you know, eighteen years old is an age full of curiosity and fantasies about the future”!
And Zhuytin Lien, Ph.D. from the Artificial Brain Lab, who is engaged in a multilingual natural understanding of language, speech generation and dialogue, put it more directly: “In China, the best answer to any question is“ maybe ”.
Ben Herzel is the CEO of Novamente and Biomind , companies involved in AI, a Ph.D. in mathematics, a writer, a philosopher, a musician, and a comprehensive futuristic maniac.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/80340/
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