China’s AI Awakening
Key competitive advantages of China are their strength in quantitative skills, a huge population, and the hard working and competitive culture of the populace.<p>An objective measure is PISA results [1]. When comparing with even the best performing US state, Massachusetts, China has many more top performers in Math, as a proportion of population [2].<p>(In 2015 only four provinces of China participated, but their combined population was 230 million vs Massachusetts&#x27;s 6.8 million. The math result of Shanghai (24 million pop.) alone would show an even larger gap.)<p>Since PISA results are scaled such that OECD country&#x27;s mean is 500 and standard deviation is 100, China&#x27;s 531 math score implies country mean at 0.3 SD above PISA mean, and US&#x27; math score at 470 implies 0.3 SD below mean. If people capable of doing AI research or proper AI implementation need to have math skills at, say, 2 SD above PISA mean, then there will be a tremendous difference in proportion between two populations with 0.6 SD difference.<p>My back-of-the-envelope calculation, assuming above figures, is the proportion will be about five times as large. But China has more than 4 times the population of the US, so the difference in <i>potential</i> numbers of AI-capable natives could be around 20 times. (Since other provinces may drag down China&#x27;s mean, it could be a bit less. An opposite influence is increasing wealth and thus more resources devoted to education, both by parents and the state. We&#x27;ll see soon since China as a whole will participate in PISA 2018.)<p>Moreover, the Chinese government is pushing AI and programming education into their education system, starting from the primary level [3].<p>The distinct advantage of the US is that it is the magnet for top talents and ambitious people from all over the world, including the Chinese, so it might continue to lead for a while. However, if the US becomes inhospitable to talents or <i>potential</i> talents, it is clear that China with its quality and quantity of human resources will soon take the lead.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#China" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Programme_for_International_St...</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.compareyourcountry.org&#x2F;pisa&#x2F;country&#x2F;usa1?lg=en" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.compareyourcountry.org&#x2F;pisa&#x2F;country&#x2F;usa1?lg=en</a><p>[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.people.cn&#x2F;n3&#x2F;2017&#x2F;0828&#x2F;c90000-9261282.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.people.cn&#x2F;n3&#x2F;2017&#x2F;0828&#x2F;c90000-9261282.html</a>