"As a whole, China seems to treat AI as just another technology, rather than as some kind of singularity moment."

This is a refreshing perspective.

sinuhe69 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The CCP is very active in the matter of AI. In fact, the DeepSeek moment was responsible for Xi calling for a private meeting with tech bosses, including the exiled Alibaba founder Ma. Which is practically unheard of in China politics.

I don't have enough information to say whether the Chinese leadership sees AI "just as the next technology" or they are more cautious due to its double-sword nature. But the immense efforts for building their own AI/GPU chips plus government's billions fund pushed for AI build out, a directive for fast pace integration on large scale and a sweeping national education reform for AI, I don't think it can be seen as similar to other ordinary techs.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-prepares-295-billi...

[1] https://www.globalneighbours.org/en/articles/china-unveils-n...

[2] https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202606/10/content_WS6a296017...

	▲	SXX 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> I don't think it can be seen as similar to other ordinary techs. Not saying its a bad thing, but US and EU limited exports of chips and litography equipment to China for decades. There is literally nothing else China can do to secure their supply of chips. They would do it even without AI bubble. Its military tech now and this is not just about LLMs. Autonomous flying killbots need GPUs too.
	▲	pstuart 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There's plenty to not like about the CCP, but their strategic investment in the country as a whole is impressive. It would be great to have that on our side as well but with the current state of things that is a non-starter.

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flawn 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The CCP knows, whatever the heck this technology will bring with itself, the current power dynamic inside of the country is on their side, and AI will solidify it.

I hypothesize that, rather than slowly having it disperse in society and allow people to harness it in ways they don't want, they might as well accelerate everything until AI becomes the totalitarian swiss knife - which they can make use of in the best way of course.

Let's see what will happen.

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culi 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

US used AI (Claude on Maven) to determine a girl's elementary school as a target in war[0] and then triple tapped it and you're still more worried about hypothetical misuses of the single country responsible for this technology not being concentrated in the hands of a few powerful elite? ffs

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/11/...

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SXX 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Its horrible event, but it was hit because Iranian regime builds schools and hospitals across the street from military bases.

Nothing to do with AI and can happen in any war. Do some research, check sattelite imagery:

https://goo.gl/maps/ZoAXkw1iFwyF7exQ8?g_st=ac

PS: I not trying defend bombing schools, but posting that its "AI" resposible is opposite of what you need to do if you care.

Its military - there been specific people who found this location for the strike, then some senior officers who choose it without checking and specific people who executed it. And its all logged with "paper" trail in chain of command.

It was all people with specific names who are responsible to avoid bombing schools. They failed. Not "AI".

	▲	culi 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The U.S. operates over 160 public schools physically located on military installations https://oldcc.gov/our-programs/public-schools-military-insta... I never said AI is responsible. I pointed out the US is clearly the one using AI in dystopian ways.

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cmrdporcupine 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't really see how open weights models further what you're talking about.

It's trivial for me to download one of their models and run it on my Spark, and there's all sorts of ways to strip out their Tiananmen-denialism or whatever.

If/when the memory price crunch dissipates, even more so. And so far it's only China I see as making moves to increase production capacity on memory, too.

If anything the centralization of capital into US-based Anthropic and OpenAI is far more terrifying from the perspective you're outlining.

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infecto 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

China is probably more capitalist in many respects than the west these days. AI, robotics and automation is a way to push into the future. In the west we have endless researchers stuck in a psychosis that they are talking to a sentient being.

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SockThief 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"National attention is still on basic needs and infrastructure buildouts, and on providing more medicines for people. The “dreams of singularity" seem like a luxury or distant consideration."

Further on. Refreshing indeed.

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surgical_fire 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Especially here on HN, where AI anxiety (especially amongst those that are really nervous that it needs to succeed) is very, very tiresome.