Beijing's New AI Academy is Aiming For Breakthroughs and Ethical Controls

An anonymous reader writes: China produces as many artificial intelligence researchers as the US, but it lags in fundamental research. The government hopes to make up ground with a new AI lab in Beijing that brings together top researchers from AI and industry to focus on things like the mathematical foundations of machine learning and neuroscience-inspired AI. But as WIRED reports, it also suggests that even the Chinese government has concerns about the ethical challenges raised by AI.

Among the first projects that the government is funding: a Chinese version of GPT-3 for government use. From the article: Noam Yuchtman, a professor at the London School of Economics, has published work that uses evidence from China to suggest that AI benefits uniquely from state intervention, because algorithms are so hungry for data and computer power that governments have access to. But he adds that such a fast-moving and unpredictable technology may also pose problems for governments. 'Innovation by its very nature is sort of uncertain, and perhaps nowhere more so than in AI,' he says.

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