evidence so far suggests that China might actually be a better steward of our global safety than the US is being
Here’s a thought experiment: if we lived in China, could we suggest on a Chinese forum that ‘the US might actually be a better steward of our global safety than China is being, at least in the domain of AI development’?
Could we have a discussion that was honest, free, and open with no fear of censorship or consequences?
Where are all the public discussions in China about how the CCP needs to be more responsible in how it uses AI, how perhaps it should stop collecting Uyghurs’ biometric data, etc?
I’m not arguing for the reckless pursuit of AGI here, but please let’s not have a warm and fuzzy view of the CCP as a steward of global safety.
I’m not a China expert, but I have some experience running classes and discussion forums in a Chinese university. In my experience, people in China feel considerably more freedom to express their views on a wide variety of issues than Westerners typically think they do. There is a short list of censored topics, centered around criticism of the CCP itself, Xi Jinping, Uyghurs, Tibet, and Taiwan. But I would bet that they have plenty of freedom to discuss AI X risks, alignment, and geopolitical issues around AI, as exemplified by the fact that Kai-Fu Lee, author of ‘AI Superpowers’ (2018), and based in Beijing, is a huge tech celebrity in China who speaks frequently on college campuses there—despite being a vocal critic of some gov’t tech policies.
Conversely, there are plenty of topics in the West, especially in American academia, that are de facto censored (through cancel culture). For example, it was much less trouble to teach about evolutionary psychology, behavior genetics, intelligence research, and even sex research in a Chinese university than in an American university.
Here’s a thought experiment: if we lived in China, could we suggest on a Chinese forum that ‘the US might actually be a better steward of our global safety than China is being, at least in the domain of AI development’?
Could we have a discussion that was honest, free, and open with no fear of censorship or consequences?
Where are all the public discussions in China about how the CCP needs to be more responsible in how it uses AI, how perhaps it should stop collecting Uyghurs’ biometric data, etc?
I’m not arguing for the reckless pursuit of AGI here, but please let’s not have a warm and fuzzy view of the CCP as a steward of global safety.
I’m not a China expert, but I have some experience running classes and discussion forums in a Chinese university. In my experience, people in China feel considerably more freedom to express their views on a wide variety of issues than Westerners typically think they do. There is a short list of censored topics, centered around criticism of the CCP itself, Xi Jinping, Uyghurs, Tibet, and Taiwan. But I would bet that they have plenty of freedom to discuss AI X risks, alignment, and geopolitical issues around AI, as exemplified by the fact that Kai-Fu Lee, author of ‘AI Superpowers’ (2018), and based in Beijing, is a huge tech celebrity in China who speaks frequently on college campuses there—despite being a vocal critic of some gov’t tech policies.
Conversely, there are plenty of topics in the West, especially in American academia, that are de facto censored (through cancel culture). For example, it was much less trouble to teach about evolutionary psychology, behavior genetics, intelligence research, and even sex research in a Chinese university than in an American university.