Regarding to your question, yes. I'd prefer a healthy counterbalance to what we have currently. Ideally, I'd prefer cooperation. A worldwide cooperation.
Arguably the cooperation between the US and China has lead to the most economic growth and prosperity in human history, it's a shame the US and China are returning to a former time.
From what I've read about DeepSeek and its founder, I would very much prefer them, even with China factored in. At least if these particular Four Horsemen are the only alternative.
On a tangential note, those who wish to frame this as the start of the great AI war with China (in which they regrettably may be right), should seriously consider the possibility of coming out on the losing end. China has tremendous industrial momentum, and is not nearly as incapable of leading-edge innovation as some Americans seem to think.
No, I was rather pointing out that getting into an altercation that you are likely (even if not guaranteed) to lose may not be the smartest of ideas. On occasion, humans have been known to fruitfully engage in cooperation and de-escalation. Please pardon my naive optimism.
"Great AI war with China", "altercation" are excessively harsh characterizations. There is nothing "escalatory" in competing for leadership in new industries with other states, nor should it be "regrettable". No one, to my knowledge, is planning to nuke DeepSeek data centers or something.
I wish I could agree with you. But have you read Aschenbrenner's "Situational Awareness" [1]? I am very much afraid that the big decision makers in AI do in fact think in those terms, and do not in any way frame this as fair competition for the benefit of all.
A person heavily invested in this wave of AI succeeding saying AI will be big and we will have AGI next year? Sure.
I don't think there is much point of reading the whole thing after the following:
"Everyone is now talking about AI, but few have the faintest glimmer of what is about to hit them. Nvidia analysts still think 2024 might be close to the peak. Mainstream pundits are stuck on the willful blindness of “it’s just predicting the next word”."
China is much more peaceful nation compared to US. So, yes, I'd prefer China leading AI research any day. They are interested in mutual trade and prosperity, they respect local laws and culture, all unlike US.
I encountered this almost first person. When American company goes like an elephant, bribing local officials left and right, using dirty practices to push out concurrents. At the same time, Chinese companies try very hard to abide to local regulations and trying to resolve all issues using local courts, etc. Like actually civilised people.
What happens inside China is nothing of my interest, it's their business. They existed for millennias, they probably know how to manage themselves. They are not trying to expand outside of may be Taiwan, they don't put their military bases in my country, they don't fund so-called "opposition" and that's good enough for me.
Bribery is probably one of the few cases where the US is significantly better than bad actors in both China and the EU, both of which have major problems with overseas bribery
If you had AlQaeda in a hypothetical region near Florida with almost two-yearly terror attacks, you would shit bricks and
create jails/prisons with more security than the Pentagon itself.
I think there's a more nuanced version of this: China respects local laws and culture _outside of what they view as China_ more than the US does. It's also worth noting that China's policy in Xinjiang is somewhat narrowly targeted at religion, and less other aspects like cuisine or clothing. That said, religion is nigh impossible to separate from the broader idea of culture in much of the world.
Give me a break. China has overseas police stations as bases of operation for harassing ex-pats and dissidents. That's not "respecting local laws and culture".
Agree, and would like to say that this is not because many of us see China as some benevolent actor on the world stage, but rather because we see how NOT benevolent the US has been historically (see South America, the middle east, etc)
the US has done lots of positive things as well. i understand it is popular to be a critic nowadays, but in many ways the US has had a strong commitment to majoritarian democracy over the last century and is trending in a better direction.
but regardless of the net balance of actions, it is clearly more interventionist than China has been up to this point
Holy smokes. Do folks like you actually believe this? China has its own style of colonialism (whatever you want to call it) but it certainly exists as strong as the US flavor.
Quite a few from an economic perspective. Like I said they have their own style of colonialism. To think they are some peaceful loving nation is foolish. Maybe in the last 10 years China have had the military equipment capable of handling an offensive. They have been smart and done all their dealings via money. Without going too far in whataboutism, I simply find it ridiculous to classify China as a warm fuzzy nation with their long list of human rights issues. That does not mean America is peaceful and loving, simply that perhaps the two countries are not so different in net.
They were asking about bombs and invasions in the literal sense, not metaphorical. I'm sure if you asked someone in Gaza or Iraq if they would rather be subjected to more of America's bombing and war crimes, or China's abstract, metaphorical "economic colonialism" they would pick China in a heartbeat.
if Gaza was neighboring China and treated China like it does its neighbors, it would be treated quite differently by China. For an illustrative example, see Uighurs.
Uyghurs committed frequent acts of terrorism against China throughout the 1990s and 2000s, so you actually don't need to imagine that scenario. The treatment of Uyghurs is unjust and a clear violation of their human rights, but it's nowhere near the level of depravity of the western-backed Gaza Genocide.
> Like I said they have their own style of colonialism.
That's moving the goalposts and doesn't address the issue.
>They have been smart and done all their dealings via money.
You mean just like the country who issues the world reserve currency and who's intelligence agencies get involved in destabilizing regimes across the world?
> That's moving the goalposts and doesn't address the issue.
Is this how you make a constructive argument? Perhaps I was expecting too much from a joke account but this style of whataboutism is boring.
My post that you responded to set my premise which was that China has its own form of colonialism that is quite different than Americas but it exists and it’s quite strong. To classify China as a peaceful loving nation that respects other cultures is as if we were saying the US has never started a conflict. It’s factually a lie. China has a long list of human rights issues, they factually do not respect other cultures even within their own borders. I am not defending America but pointing out that China is not what the OP stated.
Are you the kind of superficial petty person who needs to take jabs at the messenger's name and not the message itself?
And are you really in the position to throw stones from a glass house with that account name? If you had your real name and social media profiles linked in the bio I'd understand, but you're just being hypocritical, petty and childish here with this 'gotcha'.
> To classify China as a peaceful loving nation that respects other cultures
I never made such a classification. You're building your own strammen to form a narrative you can attack but you're not saying anything useful the contradicts my PoV and wasting our time. Since you're obviously arguing in bad faith I won't converse with you further. Goodbye.
If you have an argument that is actually on topic with what I said please continue, otherwise save your troll account for someone else. The whataboutism/gaslighting is silly. You clearly cannot read threads or respond in a logical form to the right person. The conversation at hand was about China and in response to the OP classifying them as a loving and respectful nation. I made no attempt to defend the US and it has been you moving the goalposts. You throw about whataboutism around and then simply runoff with some flimsy excuse about multiple people being unable to converse with you. Troll account.
Cumpiler asked two very clear and direct questions:
>How many countries has China invaded and bombed in the last 30 years?
>How many deaths did China's warmongering caused abroad?
You didn't answer those, just started hand waving some stuff about China's "own form of colonialism" -- without even explaining what that is and how it works (which personally I'd be curious to hear about, and believe *is*" likely guilty of violence).
So you very clearly are the one guilty of shifting the goalposts, going on tangents, and bringing up usernames instead of real arguments.
I'm sympathetic to Infecto's positions, but I have to agree. I do think Cumpiler69's username is outrageous enough as to draw some commentary (provided it's civil and is semi-friendly ribbing) and perhaps even raise questions of whether they are a troll, but the substance of their comments is strong enough as to override these minor observations/objections.
the outcome would be exactly the same. AGI leads the human race off of a cliff, not in the direction of one human interest group vs another. the only difference would be that it was china that was responsible for the extinction if the human race rather than another country. i would prefer to die with dignity… the outcome we should all be advocating for is a global halt of AI research — not because it would be easy but because there is no other option.
we need to cooperate and put aside our petty politicking right now. the potential downsides of ‘racing’ without building a safety scaffold are catastrophic.
