Exactly. I am not sure what Sam Altman is up to here, but this may be something that Silicon Valley companies and the free world will regret deeply in the future. He mentions
> to ensure that the benefits of that are fairly spread throughout humanity.
Yes, but technologies at the hands of a dictatorship is dangerous. This morning, there was just a thread about Chinese surveillance/censorship technologies being sold to other countries. Lord help us if the Chinese government somehow gets its hands on a superior weapons tech, or smarter AI.
He also says
> Qi will also take over as the Head of YC Research, YC’s non-profit research lab.
We've heard several prominent lawsuits in recent months on how Chinese nationals stolen and transfered US techs into Chinese companies (possibly government involvement). Qi Lu literally said "The Chinese government understands what AI can do, and they show a lot of commitment for sustained and long-term investment...AI is part of China’s national five-year plan, and just a few months ago, the Chinese government published a comprehensive white paper to call out a systematic investment in AI." https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/09/baidu-coo-says-chinas-gov.... We're literally handing the Chinese government some of the Western world's greatest knowledge and inventions.
This is scary scary thing. I am not sure what YC is thinking, allowing Sam Altman to do this.
You've been using HN exclusively for political argument about China since you created this account. That's not a legit use of the site, as the guidelines explain: https://hackernews.hn/newsguidelines.html. HN is a place for curiosity-driven discussion on a wide range of things, not prosecuting a political or national agenda.
Edit: it looks like you've been creating tons of accounts just to argue about China. That's clearly abusive, so we've banned this one. Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with.
> Lord help us if the Chinese government somehow gets its hands on a superior weapons tech, or smarter AI.
Why wouldn't they get their hands on that? With companies like HPE existing as now defacto chinese companies I just don't see how anyone can see this as a if rather than a when.
> We're literally handing the Chinese government some of the Western world's greatest knowledge and inventions.
Isn't this great though? More innovation spread amongst the world. This is what liberalism tells us, that there is no distinction between people living under different nations.
If we can make the lives of chinese citizens better like we use AI to make ours better, why should minor issues like government "stealing knowledge" (whatever that is) be some big issue?
> why should minor issues like government "stealing knowledge" (whatever that is) be some big issue?
Because that's not at all the only issue; the ruling party actively suppresses dissent, stifles speech, and allows little to no disagreement. Minorities and dissenters are locked away with no trial. Censorship is rampant. There's a lot more to worry about than just IP theft or corporate espionage.
Large companies have vastly more influence on governments than regular people. It's unethical to just turn a blind eye to "those actions." Companies have leverage and should use it.
Are you seriously willing to work for anyone, their politics and actions be damned? Have you heard about the concept of the "Good German"?
They wouldn't because most of the western democratic countries are now actively preventing China from stealing their technologies. US with the empowered CFIUS, with the latest defense bill. Germany just prevented 2 key companies from being taken over by China. France drafted anti-takeover measures (aimed at China) amid foreign investment boom. EU is actively seeking to put up united front against Chinese investment by end of year. And yet Sam Altman is just going to give China free knowhow/technologies.
> make the lives of chinese citizens better
Are you not aware of the sesame credit enacted by the Chinese government? Facial recognition in cameras installed everywhere? Millions of muslims in reeducation camps in Xinjiang? Are you proposing we give this government even more power and innovation??
If anything, the Chinese government can take over a private startup quickly, and use the tech against Silicon Valley companies.
> They wouldn't because most of the western democratic countries are now actively preventing China from stealing their technologies.
Thats all kind of small considering the kind of information that has already been dropshiped out with no real punishments to the chinese government itself.
All these efforts are is trying to plug the holes, not realizing the holes aren't just company buyouts but mostly espionage via chinese citizens. Even if you lock them up, they still sent the data, nothing was really prevented.
> And yet Sam Altman is just going to give China free knowhow/technologies.
Yea? Because that's all government and politics. This is markets and profits.
> Are you not aware of the sesame credit enacted by the Chinese government? Facial recognition in cameras installed everywhere?
Yea alot of people actually like it, being able to get benefits for being an upstanding system. I've heard it described as a system of karma.
Besides, we have the same things anyway, credit scores and CCTV, we just have a different cultural view of it.
> Millions of muslims in reeducation camps in Xinjiang?
And we don't put muslims in jail at higher rates than the native populations? See this just all seems like reflecting the fact that all countries have these issues.
> If anything, the Chinese government can take over a private startup quickly, and use the tech against Silicon Valley companies.
Maybe, but that's the business risk you take. If they think that's the best way to run their country, what right do we have to tell them they are wrong? Especially when we aren't exactly innocent.
This sort of whataboutism isn't helpful. We have the right to call out human rights abuses; further, I think we have an obligation to use that right lest we lose it. Are you aware that the average citizen in China simply cannot tell their government that it's wrong? It doesn't matter what abuses the US or other Western nations have or haven't done - the PRC is still in the wrong.
Ill just leave it here by saying that to even label something in another culture as "wrong" you first have to understand that the word "wrong" is deeply entrenched in western culture and can't simply just be thrown around at other cultures who have constructed entirely different systems of morality and language to express them.
> Thats all kind of small considering the kind of information that has already been dropshiped out with no real punishments to the chinese government itself.
The western world IS punishing the Chinese government right now. $50B in tariffs and investment restrictions. And it is having an effect on China. Chinese leadership is panicking. Its stock market keeps dropping, its currency weakening, its factories leaving. Wait until the tariffs go up higher and higher.
And you make it sound like China has already got all the techs - no it doesn't. Its military at least 2-3 generations behind. It is still far behind in semiconductor technologies, aircraft, engine, hardware, software, operating system, AI, robotics, etc.
> we have the same things anyway, credit scores and CCTV
The world isn't black and white; it's shades of grey. credit score is not as sesame credit. One can travel/leave the country and one cannot. CCTV is not the same as surveilance/arrest without court of law.
> See this just all seems like reflecting the fact that all countries have these issues.
Do you seriously not understand the difference between concentration camps for people that have not violated laws, vs prisons?
I suspect Altman is a staunch supporter of globalization (his twitter is pretty lefty). Meanwhile there is a large cross section of Americans who aren't as positive and some downright against globalization (myself one of them).
China can't cushion the pain anymore; they've been doing QE since 2008, and they're at 350-400% debt gdp. Way too high even for developed country, which they are not.
That's why they're trying to deflate the shadow debt (20 trillion, 150% of gdp). That's why people are losing tons of money (most if not all their life savings).
that's a myth that keeps being persisted, much like their consistent 6-7% gdp growth every year.
if you read the article, it mentions that 'He and his family had invested 7 million yuan - their life savings'.
"The Myth Of China's 'Excess Savings' Is Weighed Down By Excessive Debt. Bank balances offset against enormous, rapidly rising, bad debts, a property bubble out of all contact with reality, a closed capital account to prevent money draining overseas while it still can, and an unregulated shadow banking sector where vast pools of notional value endlessly gyrate on air currents of uncertain origin"
The average Chinese citizens savings have now been engulfed in bitcoin crash, stock market crash, real estate bubble, p2p lending, and gold crash. When money can't leave China because of capital controls for average citizens, money goes into a risky bubble (otherwise it gets eaten away by inflation).
The biggest bubble, China's real estate, which has "$202 per square foot. That's 38 percent higher than the median price per square foot in the U.S., where per-capita income is more than 700 percent higher than in China." https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-24/why-china..., is at a dangerous size. And it could be bursted by any external factors: Trump's threat to tax $500B Chinese imports, manufacturers hastened exist from China, Fed raises the interest rate a few more times, faster capital outflow from China, one of the emerging market's collapse, one of the more indebted private firm collapses, triggering a wave of collection, etc.
in 70 years, i will have paid for my property 3 times over in texas property taxes. So the US sense is more like a 20-40 year lease depending on the tax rate.
> to ensure that the benefits of that are fairly spread throughout humanity.
Yes, but technologies at the hands of a dictatorship is dangerous. This morning, there was just a thread about Chinese surveillance/censorship technologies being sold to other countries. Lord help us if the Chinese government somehow gets its hands on a superior weapons tech, or smarter AI.
He also says
> Qi will also take over as the Head of YC Research, YC’s non-profit research lab.
We've heard several prominent lawsuits in recent months on how Chinese nationals stolen and transfered US techs into Chinese companies (possibly government involvement). Qi Lu literally said "The Chinese government understands what AI can do, and they show a lot of commitment for sustained and long-term investment...AI is part of China’s national five-year plan, and just a few months ago, the Chinese government published a comprehensive white paper to call out a systematic investment in AI." https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/09/baidu-coo-says-chinas-gov.... We're literally handing the Chinese government some of the Western world's greatest knowledge and inventions.
This is scary scary thing. I am not sure what YC is thinking, allowing Sam Altman to do this.