Monday, July 29, 2024

"Chinese EVs and the race for autonomous AI "

A very smart piece from Asia Times, July 29:

China is moving into the autonomous AI lead via its world-leading EV industry, paving the way for global technical and economic dominance 

In 2015, the Chinese government announced the strategic industrial development policy known as Made in China 2025. Of the ten key industries targeted, new energy vehicles (NEVs) have arguably achieved the greatest success, changing the dynamics of the global auto industry and thoroughly alarming US and European governments.

They have also attracted the attention of US scientist and Pattern Computer CEO Mark Anderson, who sees an unprecedented challenge to Western supremacy in the technologies that support China’s hyper-competitive electric vehicle (EV) industry. Pattern Computer is a machine learning and AI company headquartered in the state of Washington.

In an essay entitled “THE RACE FOR AUTONOMOUS AI: The Key to Global Technical and Economic Dominance,” which appeared in the July 7 edition of his Strategic News Service Global Report on Technology and the Economy, Anderson identified the EV as an enabler for critically important technologies.

In his view, the winner of the race to lead the global EV market “will, in one product, gain leverage or domination in:

  • autonomous AI
  • light-weighting new materials
  • advanced manufacturing
  • lidar/radar
  • computer vision
  • advanced computing software and hardware
  • advanced chips
  • batteries
  • energy grid redesign
  • charging-station design and control

  • broadband realtime networking
  • data collection/management technologies
  • (and of course) the data itself collected around the world
  • oh yeah, and money – lots of it.”

Electric vehicles, therefore, are not just a “like to have” but a “must have” industry.

Autonomous AI is at the top of the list because it could deliver what OpenAI/ChatGPT promises to deliver but can’t – advanced general intelligence (AGI). ChatGPT and models like it are “for tasks that are language-related – only.”....

....MUCH MORE

That last point is sometimes lost in all the chatter—so to speak—about ChatGPT.

Chatbots are not the be-all and end-all of artificial intelligence.