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Mint
4 days ago
- Health
- Mint
The Quiet Voices Questioning China's AI Hype
Against the odds, some in China are questioning the top-down push to get aboard the artificial intelligence hype train. In a tightly controlled media environment where these experts can easily be drowned out, it's important to listen to them. Across the US and Europe, loud voices inside and outside the tech industry are urging caution about AI's rapid acceleration, pointing to labor market threats or more catastrophic risks. But in China, this chorus has been largely muted, until now. You may be interested in China has the highest global share of people who say AI tools have more benefits than drawbacks, and they've shown an eagerness to embrace it. And as I've written before, it's hard to overstate the exuberance in the tech sector since the emergence of DeepSeek's market-moving reasoning model earlier this year. Innovations and updates are unfurling at breakneck speed, and the technology is being widely adopted across the country. But not everyone's on board. Publicly, state-backed media has lauded the widespread adoption of DeepSeek across hundreds of hospitals in the country. But a group of medical researchers tied to Tsinghua University published a paper in the medical journal JAMA in late April gently questioning if this was happening 'too fast, too soon.' It argued that health-care institutions are facing pressure from 'social media discourse' to implement DeepSeek in order to not appear 'technologically backward.' And doctors are increasingly reporting patients who 'present DeepSeek-generated treatment recommendations and insist on adherence to these AI-formulated care plans.' The team argued that as much as AI has shown potential to help in the medical field, this rushed rollout carries risks. They are right to be cautious. But it's not just the doctors who are raising doubts. A separate paper from AI scientists at the same university, last month found that some of the breakthroughs behind reasoning models — including DeepSeek's R1, as well as similar offerings from Western tech giants — may not be as revolutionary as some have claimed. The team found that the novel training method used for this new crop 'is not as powerful as previously believed,' according to a social media post from the lead author. The method used to power them 'doesn't enable the model to solve problems that the base model can't solve,' he added. This means the innovations underpinning what has been widely dubbed as the next step — toward achieving so-called Artificial General Intelligence — may not be as much of a leap as some had hoped. This research from Tsinghua holds extra weight: The institution is one of the pillars of the domestic AI scene, long churning out both keystone research and ambitious startup founders. Another easily overlooked word of warning came from a speech given by Zhu Songchun, dean of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, linked to Peking University. Zhu said that for the nation to remain competitive it needs more substantive research and less laudatory headlines, according to an in-depth English-language analysis of his remarks published by the independent China Media Project. These cautious voices are a rare break from the broader narrative. But in a landscape where the deployment of AI has long been government priority, it makes them especially noteworthy. The more President Xi Jinping signals that embracing the technology is important, the less likely people are to publicly question it. This can lead to less overt forms of backlash, like social media hashtags on Weibo poking fun at chatbots' errors. Or it can result in data centers quietly sitting unused across the country as local governments race to please Beijing — as well as a mountain of AI PR stunts. Perhaps the biggest headwind facing the sector, despite the massive amounts of spending, is that AI still hasn't altered the earnings outlooks at most of the Chinese tech firms. The money can't lie. This doesn't mean that AI in China is just propaganda. The conflict extends far beyond its tech sector — US firms are also guilty of getting carried away promoting the technology. But multiple things can be true at once. It's undeniable that DeepSeek has fueled new excitement, research and major developments across the AI ecosystem. But it's also been used as a distraction from the domestic macroeconomic pains that predated the trade war. Without guardrails, the risk of rushing out the technology is greater than just investors losing money — people's health is at stake. From Hangzhou to Silicon Valley, the more we ignore the voices questioning the AI hype train, the more we blind ourselves to consequences of a potential derailment. More From Bloomberg Opinion: This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Catherine Thorbecke is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech. Previously she was a tech reporter at CNN and ABC News. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
South China Morning Post
03-04-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Chinese universities surpass US rivals in AI ranking – and then there is DeepSeek
A rapid rise in artificial intelligence ( AI ) research output by Chinese universities over the past three years has seen them surpass their US peers, according to recent data. Advertisement And it could go some way to explaining the surprise success of Chinese AI disrupter DeepSeek, which relied on local university graduates to build its powerful AI model at a far lower cost and with less energy than its American counterpart, OpenAI's ChatGPT. Peking University has topped a global list of institutions ranked by AI research output since 2022, according to website AIRankings. Heading up the university's Institute for Artificial Intelligence as well as its school of intelligence science and technology is Zhu Songchun, an award-winning specialist in computer vision who returned to China from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020. In a Peking University forum in January, Zhu, who also founded the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, said the narrative of US dominance in science and technology, including AI, had encouraged funding and innovation in the US, while hurting the confidence of other countries. Advertisement 'Creating world-class technology through Chinese thinking is our goal and our responsibility,' he said. 'China is fully capable of taking the initiative in the era of general AI.' He also noted that the country should not simply imitate the West in its AI development.
South China Morning Post
01-04-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
‘Giving machines a heart': China urged to dig deeper in AI development
China should address the risks of 'chaotic investment' in artificial intelligence and seek breakthroughs at the theoretical and philosophical level, rather than following Western paths to developing the technology, according to a leading Chinese AI scientist. Advertisement Zhu Songchun , director of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, said on Saturday there was still a 'severely inadequate understanding' of the technology among government agencies, the public and the media, making it difficult to guide innovation and strategic planning. He made the remarks at the Zhongguancun Forum , a state-backed tech event held each year in Beijing. Zhu, who is also dean of Peking University's Institute for Artificial Intelligence, noted that while many AI institutes had been established in China in recent years, many of them were led by people with no background in artificial intelligence In recent years, China has doubled down on its AI efforts to foster a high-quality tech talent pool and drive economic recovery. In January, Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek launched a chatbot on par with US rivals such as ChatGPT, stunning the tech world. Advertisement According to Zhu, China's AI innovations should dig deeper into the theory and philosophy behind the technology. 'The technological innovation of artificial intelligence can be divided into five levels, structured like an iceberg,' he said.
