It turns out that China isn't just investing heavily in artificial intelligence. It turns out that his experts set out to set global standards for this technology. Academics, industry researchers, government experts gathered in Beijing last November to discuss AI regulation issues. The result is a document published in Chinese just recently that shows that the country's experts are pondering the possible impact of this technology in detail. China plans to play a large role in setting the technical standards for AI development.
Chinese companies will have to adhere to these standards, and as technology spreads around the world, this will allow China to influence the course of its development. Large Chinese companies such as Tencent and Alibaba are rapidly adding AI capabilities to their cloud offerings and selling their services to the rest of the world.
“The Chinese government sees standardization not only as a way to keep their companies competitive, but also as a way to move from who follows to who sets the pace,” says Jeffrey Ding, a student at the Institute of the Future of Man at Oxford University who studies the emergence of the AI industry. in China and who translated this report. The government plan notes how the US standards bodies have influenced the development of the Internet, and hopes that the same will not happen with AI.
China's booming AI industry and massive government investment in technology have raised fears in the United States and elsewhere that China will overtake international competitors in developing this critical technology. But in reality, the economies of both the United States and China may benefit from this. The only thing that rivalry will be is how the technology spreads around the world.
“I think this is the first technology area in which China has a real chance to set the rules of the game,” says Ding.
The November discussion was attended by representatives from Tencent, one of the largest technology companies in China, as well as from the China Information Academy. Approaches to ensuring confidentiality and protection of private data were discussed, which eloquently highlights the trends in the development of Chinese attitudes. A law passed by the National People's Congress in 2016 contains some rules for the use of personal data by companies. On the other hand, the government is willing to share personal data, such as IDs, with tech companies, and this data is increasingly being used for surveillance.
Most interestingly, as Ding's analysis shows, China's emerging AI industry is carefully considering how to make the most of this technology. It looks like a new race is about to start.
Ilya Khel
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