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A wake-up for China’s AI dreams

The country’s ruling party realizes researchers in artificial intelligence need freedom to make breakthroughs that the all-controlling party seeks.

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An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

The idea that artificial intelligence will be the most transformative technology in this century has already begun to transform authoritarian China. Last week, the country’s premier, Li Qiang, said China must allow its AI researchers a relaxed environment to achieve scientific breakthroughs. He promised more leeway for a “trial and error” culture in AI labs.

His nod to greater freedom in AI research may be a breakthrough itself. It challenges China’s top-down control of society, the economy, and science. In early March, the ruling Communist Party unveiled a plan for urgent progress in high-end technologies, starting with AI. Party leader Xi Jinping said China’s failings in scientific discoveries are an “Achilles’ heel” in returning to high economic growth and creating homegrown technology.

During a tour of AI labs last week, Premier Li was told that China is still heavily reliant on AI models from the United States and elsewhere. China faces “a serious lack of self-sufficiency” in creating AI advances, according to researchers at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, a private, nonprofit institution. The nation’s efforts in AI are “littered with many essential challenges in theory and technologies.”

The ruling party’s urgency for fundamental advances in science was reflected in the government’s new budget. The largest increase in funding – 10% – will be for science and technology. Basic research will see a 13.1% increase. Yet as the South China Morning Post reported, “Some experts warn forcing a political agenda on the science community could come at the cost of healthy scientific inquiry.”

Creativity, in other words, is not easily bought. “What is lacking now is the political will to nurture creative endeavour and to allow a younger generation of researchers to question conventional wisdom,” Yu Jie, a research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, wrote in the Financial Times. “Ultimately, innovation takes time to bear fruit. It is a risky business that will require the party leadership to loosen some control.”

Such concern may account for Premier Li’s vow of some freedom of thought and greater curiosity for AI researchers. Inspiration can be found in anyone, not just in China’s ruling party.

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