this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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It’s downright scary to watch this close up. President Trump is focused on what teams American transgender athletes can race on, and China is focused on transforming its factories with A.I. so it can outrace all our factories. Trump’s “Liberation Day” strategy is to double down on tariffs while gutting our national scientific institutions and work force that spur U.S. innovation. China’s liberation strategy is to open more research campuses and double down on A.I.-driven innovation to be permanently liberated from Trump’s tariffs.

The article has a weird assumption that AI would drive innovation but offers a scathing critique of the current US government.

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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

NYTrash would much rather hype "AI" bullshit and sinophobia than confront the racism and fascism that they constantly nurture.

[–] orclev@lemmy.world 31 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, the article is right, but for all the wrong reasons. China is taking the lead globally less because of anything it's doing but more because of what everyone else is. In many ways the US was doomed from the moment one of our two political parties decided its future was best served by appealing to the ignorant and uneducated.

The GOP has spent decades attacking our education system and painting experts and the educated as the enemy all because they had the temerity to say the emperor had no clothes and point out the many ways in which conservative dogma fails. China got incredibly lucky to have just the right economy and connections in the 80s to become everybody's outsourced manufacturing hub and has further benefited by the US attacking its own educational and research institutions.

China hasn't so much sprinted past the US as they have maintained their steady pace while the US shot itself in the head because the right hand wanted to be the one in charge of everything.

Trump and the MAGA idiots are just the natural progression of the policies the GOP embraced starting all the way back with Nixon and his southern strategy and accelerated by Reagan and his economic policies.

It turns out it's hard to be a leader in a technological society when you put the dumbest people you can find in charge of things.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago

It felt like the ultimate China hype piece to me?

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 2 weeks ago

As a Chinese person, I think I would know if there were sinophobia in an article calling for "combining any tariffs on China with a welcome mat for Chinese companies to enter the U.S. market by licensing their best manufacturing innovations to U.S. firms or by partnering with them and creating advanced manufacturing factories in 50-50 ventures."

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

AI can absolutely increase productivity in manufacturing. Not the generative AI bullshit, but computer vision for any processes that require visual inspection, AI models for some optimization problems like optimally packing hardware IPs on a silicon die, and so on. Specific tasks that can be solved by purpose-built models.

If AI software, hardware and developers are abundant enough, you'd see a lot of integration done by factories all over the place. It seems like China is trying to create this abundance.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

I agree, but the article espouses and supports "I will use A.I., even if I don’t know how right now.", which is literally a quote from it.

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

AI is a digital slave that was nurtured on the efforts of labor now being whipped by the machinations of capital

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It is not only critique. There's much more in it. For example, there are lots of suggestions how to do it better, in many different aspects. This thing hasn't been written in an hour.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 3 weeks ago

I was highlighting the best and strongest parts of the essay—the analysis of faults within our system, because his suggestions for improvements are wedged by his AI simping and questionable feasibility given Chinese anti-American sentiments; the Chinese would probably market their ideas for Africa or Europe instead.

This thing hasn't been written in an hour.

agreed; it's really well-structured and entrancingly-written from a rhetorical standpoint.

[–] gramie@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago

I guess if you can't rely on human intelligence, you have to hope that artificial intelligence can do the job.

[–] chrash0@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

why focus on the AI boogeyman? investing in AI is important in this context because it has the potential to increase overall productivity. which, like, don’t we see that as a good thing? also, AI might suck right now, but it’s stupid to think that we should just abandon that research. AI is clearly an innovation, and if you don’t think so it’s time to touch grass.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But what makes China’s manufacturing juggernaut so powerful today is not that it just makes things cheaper; it makes them cheaper, faster, better, smarter and increasingly infused with A.I.

Attention, Kmart shoppers: When you already have a manufacturing engine as powerful and digitally connected as China’s and then you infuse it with A.I. at every level, it’s like injecting a stimulant that can optimize and accelerate every aspect of manufacturing, from design to testing to production.

Color me skeptical. I've no doubt that AI has a lot of great uses and that research on it should continue, but shoving it into everything and as a magic cure-all just isn't the way to go.

[–] chrash0@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

i’m definitely not advocating for that. it’s just a bit strange to talk about it like that on a policy level. should the US, as a policy, defund AI research?

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No though in implementation we should probably cut way back on the Stargate thing

[–] chrash0@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

right so we should continue making smart investments in cutting edge tech, which is probably the point they were trying to make, even if the wording of it is informed by a pop culture zeitgeist more than an understanding of the tech and ethics that are currently being scrutinized as part of the development of what is called “AI”

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

I really doubt that one could have your position and write what I quoted, which does not seem to be related to pop culture at all either

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Profits over productivity. If replacing people with AI, as impractical as it may be, leads to higher profits then CEOs have an obligation to do so. Poverty, sickness, and homelessness are none of their fucking concern.