The AI Future Has Finally Arrived

Axios:

“Amid a torrid geopolitical, commercial and scientific race around artificial intelligence, universities are adding professors, classes and entire new programs, but there is still a massive talent shortage, forcing companies to contemplate creative ways around it.

Steve and Kaveh report: The frenzy at American and Canadian universities reflects the changing technology cycle, in which AI is expected to become perhaps the defining factor in economic and geopolitical power in the decades ahead.

The big picture: Students are pouring into computer science programs from coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada, university professors tell us. But the AI students among them still number at most in the low thousands in all at the moment, while companies say they are prepared to hire tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of AI experts …”

As Kai-Fu Lee explains in his book, deep learning AI is the big breakthrough and that technological breakthrough is already in the rearview mirror. Andrew Yang said yesterday at his rally that we are only three years away from an AI robot sounding identical to a human.

Further reading:

AI Superpowers: China’s Sputnik Moment
AI Superpowers: China’s Sputnik Moment (Part 2)
AI Superpowers: China’s Sputnik Moment (Part 3)
The Creeping AI Economic Revolution Is Here

Axios:

“The U.S. and China, front runners in the race to lead the world in AI, are playing with different strengths: China has vast amounts of data and money at its disposal, but the U.S. has a significant leg up in talent.

The big picture: Crucially, the American talent pool is made up mostly of international researchers and students, according to a new analysis from Joy Dantong Ma of the Paulson Institute.

More than half of the best-of-the-best AI researchers in the U.S. are originally from other countries, Ma writes.

Why it matters: If Ma is right, the Trump administration’s immigration policy may be damaging its efforts to win the AI race.

New visa restrictions specifically targeting Chinese immigrants could be especially harmful to U.S. universities trying to attract the best students for AI programs — and, by extension, to U.S. companies looking to hire top AI talent once they graduate. …”

Actually, it doesn’t matter at all.

Kai-Fu Lee explains in his book why China doesn’t need immigrants. The technological place we are at now is like the immediate aftermath of the invention of electricity. The question now is how will the technology be implemented by the government and entrepreneurs. How many new devices can deep learning AI be applied to now to automate the economy?

Note: MUH GUNS! I NEED MUH GUNS TO FIGHT HALF SENTIENT DRONES AND CYLONS!

joking/not joking this doesn’t sound nearly as far fetched as it might look