China Daily Global Edition (USA)
A TALE OF TWO TECH GIANTS China and the US are the two main pillars of AI technology, says Kai-fu Lee in his new book, Xing Yi reports in Shanghai.
Artificial intelligence expert Kai-fu Lee recently released his new book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order. The book, published in both English and Chinese, is already on the best-selling lists for new titles on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Amazon China.
With bold predictions and a well-crafted narrative about the hot topic, the book is a good follow-up to a previous title, Artificial Intelligence, a primer to this field, co-written by Lee and tech writer Wang Yonggang last year.
Lee, 56, is the founder of Sinovation Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in many technology companies around the world.
The author, who graduated with a PhD in speech recognition from Carnegie Mellon University, was the Google China’s former chief and once served in Apple Inc and Microsoft Research Asia.
With a strong academic background and rich experience in IT industries in both China and the United States, Lee writes with elegance and authority on the technological and economic transitions in our world brought about by AI, and the duopoly of China and the US in this game.
A survivor of lymphatic cancer, he also offers a humane solution to the imminent challenges looming ahead in our labor market and social system.
War of two kingdoms
In Lee’s view, China and the US stand as two pillars of AI technology, and in the battle for AI supremacy, China will probably prevail.
In the book he predicts that China will have slight lead in AI development in five years.
“The US is leading the world in fundamental research in AI by at least 10 years,” Lee said during a book talk in Shanghai last month. But he thinks that the lead doesn’t give the US much advantage over China as the research in the academia is transparent and open.
And the diffusion of technological innovation in AI is measured in hours between Silicon Valley and Beijing’s Zhongguancun, home to many Chinese IT giants.
But China’s internet economy, such as the ubiquitous mobile payment systems and shared rides, gives it an incomparable edge, he says.
“The data is like the fossils oil for industrial growth in AI era, and China is the Saudi Arabia in this AI era,” he says, adding that the number of China’s mobile internet users are three times those in the US, and they are fueling computer’s self-learning with tons of data generated daily.
“The only chance for the US to win back the lead will be if an American company develops another disruptive innovation like deep learning,” he says. “However, I believe the odds are less than 10 percent.”
He says that only seven major players are capable of making such technological breakthroughs. Four of them are in the US — Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft — while three are in China — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.
However, Lee sees Silicon Valley as complacent because US companies are more prone to stay within their comfort zones — Facebook in social media, Amazon in e-commerce — and overlook the innovations by their Chinese counterparts in the “hypercompetitive business landscape”.
Another point Lee makes is that government policy plays a big role.
In his book, he praises the Chinese government’s systematic planning and huge support for AI development, as the State Council released an ambitious strategy to build an AI industry worth $145 billion and become the leading AI power by 2030.
The strategy came two months after the country’s top Go player, Ke Jie, was defeated by Google’s AlphaGo artificial intelligence program in the ancient and demanding Chinese board game in 2017.
Lee says the launch of the strategy is China’s “Sputnik moment” in AI technology.
Sputnik-1 was the former Soviet Union’s first satellite that spurred the founding of NASA and US government support for space-technology development in the 1960s.
But he warned that a narrow understanding of the race in technological development will prevent human beings from together planning for a common future in this AI era.
The human element
Meanwhile, besides the development of AI technology, many are worried about a jobless future where robots, autonomous cars and machines will replace factory workers, shop cashiers and taxi drivers.
Just like what happened to workers during the industrial revolution two centuries ago.
Various reports and studies say that at least 20 percent to nearly half of the human workforce is at risk, and Lee said that AI will be able to perform 40-50 percent of human jobs in 15 years in a talk in Beijing last month.
But Lee is a kind of person.
“There’s one thing AI cannot replace — it cannot love,” he says.
“It cannot show empathy, trust, respect, so it cannot do jobs involving social interaction.”
It sounds like a simple truth, but Lee learned the lesson half-glass-full the hard way.
Lee was a workaholic. He used to work day and night, replying to emails, attending meetings, giving speeches and writing blogs.
“I even planned for an important meeting while waiting for my daughter’s birth outside the delivery room,” he recalls.
The meaning of life dawned on Lee when he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 2013.
The fear of death made him rethink his way of living and realize the most important thing in life is not about being productive.
“Instead, it is about giving love to families, friends and others, and that’s the strength of being human,” he says.
“AlphaGo can beat human players, but it cannot experience happiness, and it doesn’t have the longing for a hug after a victory.”
In the book, Lee suggests that people focus on jobs that requires empathy, such as nursing, social work or elderly care, or work that demands creativity, such as art, teaching and writing.
He says that by doing monotonous and repetitive work, machines with AI technology can buy humanity more time to pursue the meaning of life.
“Looking back at the 34 years in my pursuing AI technology, I’m proud to see AI is creating immense value, changing business and the world, but I don’t think that machines can finally replace human brain like I did at the age of 21,” he writes.
“And I started to believe that our most valuable part is not brain, but heart.”
Among the participating choirs is Balta, an all-female choir, which was founded in 1999 by Mara Marnauza, professor at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Music Academy in Latvia. Marnauza is the choir’s artistic director and conductor.
“This is the first time for us in China and we will perform nine songs, including Western classical songs and traditional Latvian folk songs,” says Marnauza, who traveled to Beijing with 27 singers of the choir.
“Each country has its own unique chorus songs, which carry the country’s culture and tradition. We not only present our own songs but also enjoy other countries’ music.”
Like Marnauza, it’s also the first trip to China for 25-year-old student Sizwe, who is studying accounting at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. With 16 songs, including African folk songs and Western pop songs, Sizwe will perform with 56 students of the University of Johannesburg Choir, ages 19 to 26, in Beijing.
According to the conductor of the choir Renette Bouwer, the University of Johannesburg Choir has bloomed into “a musical hybrid that reflects the country’s past and hope for its future”.
Formed in 2005, the choir has traveled to many countries, including Austria, Germany and Belgium.
“Besides songs which are performed in four languages, we will also perform authentic African dance. I was very excited even during the rehearsal,” says Sizwe, who started singing in school choirs at age 6.