China's AI adoption reflects pragmatism more than optimism

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 52:52

   I want to move on here because you've also spent a lot of time in China where I think public attitudes towards AI at least seem on the surface to be like very different to what they're like in the US. You know, you've got this situation where people's grandparents in nursing homes are just like exuberant users of DeepSeek. And also when you have, I think, some survey results, you can see that in China, most people see more benefit than drawback to AI, which is like a very different picture in the US. How do you explain this contrast? Is what's going on here just some sort of culture of techno-optimism in China at play? I was there for a couple weeks meeting with them, both people in the Chinese AI industry, as well as just other random people around.

2. 53:48

   Yeah, so I went for two weeks a little bit ago, and I spent a lot of that time asking people about whether there was an AI backlash, whether people were worried about risks, worried about jobs, all of this kind of thing. And I think my view of it is it's less a techno-optimism than it is a kind of techno-determinist pragmatism. I actually see a lot of the same techno-determinism in China, as I do in Silicon Valley, where there's a sense that progress and modernity has a particular direction. Like, we are always going to see the economy and technology march forward. The CCP has been very clear about the need for technological advancement in order to advance China itself as a country and as an economy to its next stages of growth. And given that, people sort of see it as the only choice you can make to get on board. There's not a culture

3. 54:36

   of protest or a culture of resistance in China. I think that's just part and parcel of being in an authoritarian society where there's a lot of government repression of any contrary speech or any attempt to organize in some form or another. And what that means is just like ordinary people, like when I talk to my family members, the idea of resisting AI or protesting is almost unfathomable to them because you're going to get crushed because you know the government is very supportive of AI diffusion. You're not going to win. Second of all, with things like jobs, it's like every, there, China already has a lot of white collar unemployment. It's already a very competitive job market. It's sort of, if I don't use open claw, I'm going to fall off. And somebody else who is using open claw is going to take my spot. And so a lot of the attitudes around

4. 55:23

   AR are just much more practical. There's no choice economically and politically except to get on bored with AI. And so people are more open to it. And I think more open to adopting AI and focus more on the economic value it provides. But I would say that a lot of this does have to do with almost this resignation that there is no choice. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, I wonder how much what you're seeing here tracks the reactions to sort of previous waves for automation in China. I don't know how much you know about this.

5. 56:00

   I mean, one example that kind of slightly goes against the grain of what you're saying is that I know there has been some backlash to technology in China. I mean, there was definitely some public scrutiny and reaction to, I believe, delivery driver algorithms some time ago. I know this is just one example. Yeah. Do you have a sense of whether this is the classic trend you see in previous waves of automation in China or if it's a little bit different?

6. 56:26

   Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that there's like no dissent or no backlash at all. Like you mentioned, I think like delivery drivers have engaged in some forms of organizing. There were actually protests around robotaxis that were introduced in Wuhan. So Baidu has a robotaxi outfit. They started rolling them out and there are like some like protest light type things. I will still say that these are very marginal compared to the level of like public dissent and protest in the U.S.

7. 56:54

   There are many, many, many fewer Chinese people who are willing to engage in these high-risk actions because it is just extremely politically high risk to do so. At the same time, the China scholar, Matt Sheehan, who's been tracking some of the AI regulatory conversation in China really well, he did note that some of he heard in his conversations with the Chinese policy community that the robo-taxi protests were part of what inspired Chinese policymakers to be more active on the labor legislation front in particular.

8. 57:22

   And so the other thing that I'll say is that the Chinese government, while overall still being a promoter of AI and a promoter of technology very broadly, they are more willing to introduce lots of little pieces of iterative legislation around the potential societal harms of AI. So there's a recent court case in Beijing that ruled that firing, it wouldn't count as sort of just cause, basically, to fire a worker because of AI.

9. 57:52

   Or China has also legislated companion chatbots quite aggressively. They obviously have a lot of speech regulations. When I was talking to my aunt, who works at a state-owned enterprise in China, she mentioned, like, yeah, I use Doubao, which is their chatbot, and it can probably do the job of two employees. but like they're not going to lay us off like because there's sort of been a promise to at least the state-owned enterprise workers that we will not lay you off because of ai that's not a good enough reason and so for some people there is also a slight sense of security that the government by being much much more active than the u.s and attempting to regulate ai uses is going to protect people from the worst downsides but overall i think the main thing i would say is just that China has seen a lot of, a lot of both tumult in the last 50 years, but also a lot of

10. 58:41

    progress where, you know, like if you ask a middle-aged or an older Chinese person, they've seen revolutions in their lifetime and they've also seen their standard of living just like increase dramatically year on year on year on year. And so, yes, they may not like this or that about AI, but fundamentally there's a sense that this is the way that progress moves and you better get on board or you're going to fall behind. I want to talk now about media coverage of AI