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即将到来的技术冷战

Apr 30, 2019 Manuel Muñiz

马德里——在特朗普政府对华贸易冲突背后隐藏着一种由来已久的担忧，那就是美国有可能在全球技术竞争中失去优势。而且有这种担忧的还不仅仅是特朗普。从广义角度看，在美国的决策圈，中国旨在确保其在网络能力、人工智能（AI）、航空及其他前沿领域占据主导地位的“中国制造2025”政策不仅被视为一种经济挑战，而且还被视为一种地缘政治威胁。从美国电信基础设施、知识产权到美国在东亚地区的军事地位，所有这一切均被视为正受到威胁。

科技正推动地缘紧张局势的现实与许多学者和决策者的预测背道而驰。就在20世纪中期，有人还怀疑地理因素将不再在全球市场运作中发挥有意义的作用。全球化和科技将打造一个完全竞争的“扁平”世界，这会导致人才自动均匀分布到各个地区和领域；熟练劳动者将在有需要时与生产流程产生远程联系。

事实上，21世纪人才比以往任何时候分布都更不均匀。为数不多的几个主要中心——马萨诸赛州坎布里奇；硅谷；中国深圳——现在拥有全世界很大一部分高技术数字和技术工人。目前并不完全清楚为什么会这样。但某些学者已经开始将数字人才集聚归结为“隐性知识”所发挥的作用：如行业惯例和流程等内部诀窍，或者只有在某些具体条件下才有价值的专业技术。

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Richard Graham May 3, 2019

This is typical nonsense: billionaires do not innovate, they appropriate.
How many artists have died in obscurity, and then had their work appropriated as a sign of intelligence, sensibility (but not sense), for billions?
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Richard Graham May 3, 2019

Sounds like a target rich environment, and not just for incoming missiles, but for social unrest and collapse, drug-resistant diseases, and arrogant dictators.
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j. von Hettlingen May 3, 2019

Manuel Muñiz suggests relations between China and the US are on a course that is seen as a new Cold War. The ongoing trade dispute may just be the cover-up of a deeper conflict – the race for technology of the future – which has become an increasingly “high-stakes zero-sum affair.” For the US, it is not just about tech dominance, that gives an economic, geostrategic edge over its rivals. Washington fears the “future of liberal democracy,” should China rule the world, given its totalitarian governance and its ambition for global leadership.
The author says there is bi-partisan acknowledgement that China’s high-profile industrial policy – “Made in China 2025” – that would enable China to become the world leader in manufacturing and technology, excelling in cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence (AI), aeronautics, and other frontier sectors – is regarded “not just as an economic challenge, but as a geopolitical threat. Everything from US telecommunications infrastructure and intellectual property to America’s military position in East Asia are considered to be at risk.”
In its race against the US to develop AI, China is on track to take the lead. Innovation and technology tend to transform a country’s industries, societies and boost its soft power in international relations. While the US resents China’s rise, its declining role in the world is a troubling one. It stayed away from the discussion of international data governance norms ahead of the G20 in 2018. Trump signed an executive order only in February by increasing research into AI technology, while China released its AI plan two years ago. Some tens of billions of dollars had allegedly been channelled into the development of the technology, while the US has been lacking in the national policy area.
Instead of adopting the Cold War mentality and a zero-sum mindset, people like MIT president, L. Rafael Reif urge China and the US to cooperate and leverage each other’s strengths. Together they might accomplish more in their effort to advance AI. China could benefit from the expertise of US developers and cutting-edge hardware for AI-applications. The US could gain access to the massive volume of Chinese data. These amounts of consumer data are the lifeblood of AI development. However China does not have a diverse pool of talent and a diverse population.
Such cooperation would yield mutual benefits. China and the US need to sort out their differences. The US will have to change its focus from merely reacting to China’s actions to building a long-term national strategy for sustaining its leadership in science and innovation. Moreover it must negotiate with China to stop unfair business and market practices, like intellectual property and technology transfer policies etc. Unlike during the Cold War era, the challenge to America’s leadership in technology is more sophisticated, resourceful and advanced. The failure to respond would damage its interests for decades to come and accelerate the decline of global leadership.
Nadal warns against “double-locking” all the doors in response to China’s ambition, as the US will only “lock” itself into “mediocrity.” But if the US respects China as a rising competitor and learns from its many strengths, this approach will “inspire America to be its incomparable best.” It remains to be seen whether the US is ready to share power with an equal player on the world stage.
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lt lee May 2, 2019

"If an authoritarian regime excels in the technological race, and if emerging technologies enable it to deliver better governance without the need for more political openness, governments around the world will take note."

All other things being equal, a more focused government paying close attention to the country's technological needs and global technological trends. If this is authoritarian, then YES, authoritarian regime would certainly excel in the technological race.
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Petey Bee May 1, 2019

Trade in physical goods can very well be zero sum. Trade in technology and information products never is - information products and technology hve a one time cost for their creation, and in the absence of artificial barriers, comparatively negligible cost thereafter. For the larger populations outside the first world, this makes all the difference.

The turning point that US supremacists are perhaps concerned about is this: we now have a minority of the population of educated tech-literate workers creating informational goods, whose benefits can be scaled without material limits, and are thus able to bypass the guiding mechanisms that can shape international trade in accordance with strategy. And most of that population, like myself, are immigrants already, and when necessary, play along with the flag waving idiocy just for the paycheck.

Since the turn of the century, and certainly since 2010, computers became cheap enough to be accessible to more people outside the 'first world' than inside it. The teenagers of 2010 who were born into the rapidly growing Chinese middle class, for example, or in India, or south America, are now in the work force or making their way thru higher education. They outnumber their US and Euro counterparts, are growing still, and if not already too numerous for the best ones to be lured away to immigrate to the US, they will be within a couple more years.

There is no war here. It's just a question of whether we will have isolated tech and info markets, or a globally connected one.

Distributional issues will remain either way, and those, rather than a pointless and destructive dream of maintaining the balance of power from 1995, should be the focus.
- Prashant Kotak May 1, 2019
  
  The numbers game doesn't quite work. If it did, then a simple integration under the curve of population growth over the last five centuries tells me I'm owed three Shakespeares, seven more Byrons, and at least ninety Ian McEwans. Where are they? All I got now is six hundred Stormzys instead - a poor exchange I would say. And in fact, an absolutely minuscule population produced the three dozen towering greats of antiquity. A Homer or a Lao Tze still has more to say to me than say, a Vidal. Why? Even in the Sciences, I see no one the equivalent of, for example, von Neumann or a grouping like the 'Martians'.
  Numbers matter, but they're not everything.
  - Petey Bee May 1, 2019
    
    True enough. While I can't speak for literature, I'd give two answers for your maths and sciences.
    
    The first is that the population that counts for this argument is those who are financially secure enough to let their kids ride the education system to their full ability.
    
    The second answer is that, when the conditions above were met in previous decades, the numbers were such that they mostly just got student visas and stayed, or else emigrated soon after completing their education.
    
    I'm suggesting that this pathway is going to be overwhelmed in the coming decade, if not already. Anti-immigrant sentiment and a return of cold war paranoia makes even more severe.
    - lt lee May 2, 2019
      
      Good point.
      Last week's headline:
      "Chronic malnutrition stunts Asia's rising-star economies: Over 30% of Indian, Filipino and Indonesian kids never get chance to reach potential."
      Between the US and China, it is more or less a number game.
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Christopher Harris May 1, 2019

Another 'Sputnik moment'? Given how much science, technology and education seem to have suffered under world-is-flat neoliberalism--a system in which the centre of economic gravity is actually in the real estate sector--this could be a good thing.
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Godfree Roberts Apr 30, 2019

China is not a democracy? It's simply lazy to deny that China is a democracy just because its application of democracy is different from ours and we can't be bothered looking into it.

China is far more democratic than, say, the USA, in both form and substance. The Carter Center oversees its elections, voter turnout is 20% higher than America's and Chinese trust and satisfaction with their government is many times higher than ours.

No matter how you slice it–constitutionally, electively, popularly, procedurally, operationally, substantively financially, even theocratically–China comes out ahead. In survey after survey, it's the most trusted government in the world and its policies enjoy the highest support.

And, btw, According to the Japan Science and Technology Agency, China now ranks as the most influential country in four of eight core scientific fields, tying with the U.S.

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) examined not just the number of AI research papers coming from China but the quality of those papers—as judged by the number of citations they receive in other work. The study suggests that China will overtake the US in the most-cited 50% of research papers this year, the top 10% of research papers in 2020, and the top 1% by 2025.

The World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, ranked 167 universities and public research universities for the top 500 patent applications. 110 of the patents were from China, 20 from the United States and 19 from South Korea. China dominates a global ranking of the most-cited research papers published in the 30 hottest technology fields, too.
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