#193 – Sihao Huang on navigating the geopolitics of US–China AI competition

#193 – Sihao Huang on navigating the geopolitics of US–China AI competition

"You don’t necessarily need world-leading compute to create highly risky AI systems. The biggest biological design tools right now, like AlphaFold’s, are orders of magnitude smaller in terms of compute requirements than the frontier large language models. And China has the compute to train these systems. And if you’re, for instance, building a cyber agent or something that conducts cyberattacks, perhaps you also don’t need the general reasoning or mathematical ability of a large language model. You train on a much smaller subset of data. You fine-tune it on a smaller subset of data. And those systems — one, if China intentionally misuses them, and two, if they get proliferated because China just releases them as open source, or China does not have as comprehensive AI regulations — this could cause a lot of harm in the world." —Sihao Huang

In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez speaks to Sihao Huang about his work on AI governance and tech policy in China, what’s happening on the ground in China in AI development and regulation, and the importance of US–China cooperation on AI governance.

Links to learn more, highlights, video, and full transcript.

They cover:

  • Whether the US and China are in an AI race, and the global implications if they are.
  • The state of the art of AI in China.
  • China’s response to American export controls, and whether China is on track to indigenise its semiconductor supply chain.
  • How China’s current AI regulations try to maintain a delicate balance between fostering innovation and keeping strict information control over the Chinese people.
  • Whether China’s extensive AI regulations signal real commitment to safety or just censorship — and how AI is already used in China for surveillance and authoritarian control.
  • How advancements in AI could reshape global power dynamics, and Sihao’s vision of international cooperation to manage this responsibly.
  • And plenty more.

Chapters:

  • Cold open (00:00:00)
  • Luisa's intro (00:01:02)
  • The interview begins (00:02:06)
  • Is China in an AI race with the West? (00:03:20)
  • How advanced is Chinese AI? (00:15:21)
  • Bottlenecks in Chinese AI development (00:22:30)
  • China and AI risks (00:27:41)
  • Information control and censorship (00:31:32)
  • AI safety research in China (00:36:31)
  • Could China be a source of catastrophic AI risk? (00:41:58)
  • AI enabling human rights abuses and undermining democracy (00:50:10)
  • China’s semiconductor industry (00:59:47)
  • China’s domestic AI governance landscape (01:29:22)
  • China’s international AI governance strategy (01:49:56)
  • Coordination (01:53:56)
  • Track two dialogues (02:03:04)
  • Misunderstandings Western actors have about Chinese approaches (02:07:34)
  • Complexity thinking (02:14:40)
  • Sihao’s pet bacteria hobby (02:20:34)
  • Luisa's outro (02:22:47)


Producer and editor: Keiran Harris
Audio engineering team: Ben Cordell, Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong
Additional content editing: Katy Moore and Luisa Rodriguez
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

Episoder(332)

#19 - Samantha Pitts-Kiefer on working next to the White House trying to prevent nuclear war

#19 - Samantha Pitts-Kiefer on working next to the White House trying to prevent nuclear war

Rogue elements within a state’s security forces enrich dozens of kilograms of uranium. It’s then assembled into a crude nuclear bomb. The bomb is transported on a civilian aircraft to Washington D.C, ...

14 Feb 20181h 4min

#18 - Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty & the spurious action-inaction distinction

#18 - Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty & the spurious action-inaction distinction

Ofir Reich started out doing math in the military, before spending 8 years in tech startups - but then made a sharp turn to become a data scientist focussed on helping the global poor. At UC Berkeley...

31 Jan 20181h 18min

#17 - Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster

#17 - Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster

Immanuel Kant is a profoundly influential figure in modern philosophy, and was one of the earliest proponents for universal democracy and international cooperation. He also thought that women have no ...

19 Jan 20181h 52min

#16 - Michelle Hutchinson on global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals

#16 - Michelle Hutchinson on global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals

In the 40s and 50s neoliberalism was a fringe movement within economics. But by the 80s it had become a dominant school of thought in public policy, and achieved major policy changes across the Englis...

22 Des 201755min

#15 - Phil Tetlock on how chimps beat Berkeley undergrads and when it’s wise to defer to the wise

#15 - Phil Tetlock on how chimps beat Berkeley undergrads and when it’s wise to defer to the wise

Prof Philip Tetlock is a social science legend. Over forty years he has researched whose predictions we can trust, whose we can’t and why - and developed methods that allow all of us to be better at p...

20 Nov 20171h 24min

#14 - Sharon Nunez & Jose Valle on going undercover to expose animal abuse

#14 - Sharon Nunez & Jose Valle on going undercover to expose animal abuse

What if you knew that ducks were being killed with pitchforks? Rabbits dumped alive into containers? Or pigs being strangled with forklifts? Would you be willing to go undercover to expose the crime? ...

13 Nov 20171h 25min

#13 - Claire Walsh on testing which policies work & how to get governments to listen to the results

#13 - Claire Walsh on testing which policies work & how to get governments to listen to the results

In both rich and poor countries, government policy is often based on no evidence at all and many programs don’t work. This has particularly harsh effects on the global poor - in some countries governm...

31 Okt 201752min

#12 - Beth Cameron works to stop you dying in a pandemic. Here’s what keeps her up at night.

#12 - Beth Cameron works to stop you dying in a pandemic. Here’s what keeps her up at night.

“When you're in the middle of a crisis and you have to ask for money, you're already too late.” That’s Dr Beth Cameron, who leads Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative...

25 Okt 20171h 45min

Populært innen Fakta

fastlegen
dine-penger-pengeradet
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
mikkels-paskenotter
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
rss-bisarr-historie
foreldreradet
treningspodden
jakt-og-fiskepodden
takk-og-lov-med-anine-kierulf
ukast
rss-sunn-okonomi
rss-bak-luftfarten
sinnsyn
lederskap-nhhs-podkast-om-ledelse
fryktlos
hverdagspsyken
rss-kull
gravid-uke-for-uke
level-up-med-anniken-binz