[sigmar]

>But lately I’ve been thinking if it is just a class issue? This cohort of people likely have a cushion that softens the concussive blows they are doling out right now. They perhaps have the luxury of a somewhat functioning government and a social safety net that they are witness to in all walks of life. Over half the world does not. Science and technology, I feel, has always had a certain apathy towards the plight the people at the bottom rungs.

In the data I've seen, the US and European countries have a more negative view of AI than China and developing countries. Doesn't that fly in the face of the premise here that only people that have economic security support AI?

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/survey-how-21-countries-vie...

https://www.ipsos.com/en/conflicting-global-perceptions-arou...

https://www.mexc.com/news/161986

[ndiddy]

One large part of this is that all the heads of AI companies and business leaders in the US and Europe keep talking about how AI is going to take jobs away and displace "lower-value human capital", while we see power shortages and higher energy rates in areas where AI datacenters are built. Meanwhile, China's 15th 5 year plan involves integrating AI across the whole economy while expanding vocational retraining programs, and building out new renewable infrastructure to power datacenters. The Chinese Human Resources Ministry expects AI to create 6-10 million new jobs in the short term, and the Chinese government plans to use it in the long term to fill in gaps in the labor force caused by its demographic shortages.

I think this is a big reason why the Chinese have a more positive view of AI than the West: their leaders have a clear plan to mitigate the negative externalities of introducing AI, and ours don't.

[arjie]

Seems to me that it is downstream from the fact that China's economy is growing strongly and strong state power means that they see infrastructural improvements. US and European governments reflect the views of their people which are generally retrogressive and aimed at a fictional view of the 1970s as described in The Simpsons. Consequently, the Chinese are enthusiastic about Nuclear Power, and Solar Power, and Wind Energy, and AI, and ship building, and space programs, and trains, and electric vehicles, and so on ad infinitum to the degree that they don't mind smoggy cities to get these. Meanwhile Western nations mostly want to live in whatever they already have and would prefer nothing change or if it does that this change moves them closer to a past world, while nonetheless enjoying clean air and water.

I, personally, think that this is somewhat like hoping that mining coal will lead to a great leap forward in development because mining coal led in the past to a great leap forward in development.

[zarzavat]

The classic progression of an economy is resource -> manufacturing -> knowledge.

AI turns this line into a circle by making knowledge a resource problem. Less developed economies with a lot of natural resources and manufacturing like China's are less at risk than heavily knowledge-based economies like Europe's.

[umeshunni]

> In the data I've seen, the US and European countries have a more negative view of AI than China and developing countries.

I think that's more a sign of the relative state of these economies and the rate of progress. In developing economies, people see progress as something that will improve their lives. In developed economies, they see it as something that will disrupt their current status quo and must be stopped.

[cautiouscat]

Maybe it has to do with % of blue collar vs. white collar jobs in those countries? I also wonder if they have stronger safety nets for displaced workers? It is curious. My anecdata has shown that people who feel "safe" job wise are either neutral or pro. Otherwise negative.

[mxkopy]

The attitudes aren’t 1-1 comparable. China is on a winning streak in terms of socioeconomic development, and AI is likely seen as merely a new technology in the context of the social contract. The US is going the opposite way, and people here view AI through the lens of oligarchy more often than not. I wouldn’t say that a lot of people feel as optimistic, even if they are actually more economically secure.

[seanmcdirmid]

Do you have direct experience with this? From what I understand China has huge youth employment issues right now, and the 35 and out (at even non tech companies) meme has some basis in reality.

China historically has had a poor social safety net, but made up for it with a more dynamic labor market (well, we could say the same about the USA vs Europe).

[thrance]

China is still riding the high of its economic miracle, that lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, which is why the population is so complacent toward their authoritarian government. For now, at least.

[seanmcdirmid]

That's a pretty generic answer that would have been correct 10 or 20 years ago as well. But where are the recent trends in youth employment? Is automation reducing the need for workers going to cause (or is causing) social instability?

I saw a tiktok a few days ago about the proliferation of autonomous food delivery taking away jobs from delivery bike riders (the ones pretty ubiquitous in China today), and this kind of job was sort of considered a safety net if you lost your normal job (in that you can can always deliver food). It was Chinese authored and I doubt anyone who has never been to China would have understood it anyways.

[mmilunic]

The idea of the social contract impacting perceptions of AI is interesting to me. I hate to use the words “permanent underclass”, but perhaps the main difference is a fear of that permanent underclass actually materializing. In the US, it seems that that would be the logical endpoint of the capitalist system and many people predict AI simply replacing them permanently. Of course, China is not completely communist, but since their social contract is much less individualistic and more collectivist, maybe that makes people see AI as much more likely to uplift society as a whole or at least “trickle down”.

I think this might be a bigger reason as China’s economy for the youth isn’t looking the brightest right now.

[treebeard901]

One of the billionaires on the All In Podcast, (which I listen to sometimes to get that kind of perspective), mentioned that one thing the U.S. and China could work on as far as regulating AI, is Know Your Customer controls. At first after one of the hosts said this I didn't think much of it but then started thinking through the second order effects later on. Why would that be such a main concern? He gave the example of dangerous people using AI to do bad things, but I think the subtext is much more complicated. At least from the ownership class point of view. Which also ties into the original idea behind OpenAI. Which is that the public should have access to the full abilities of any model equally. But the ownership class can't have this. In another post someone made a good point about licenses and this can be extended to stuff like the legal system, where at the end of the day the personal human connections decide things far more than what a model would compute the result of a case to be...

So because so much of maintaining the forms of power and order within the wealthy class has been reliant on information, and again the legal example can be used here because if you hire a lawyer, you're largely paying for information and access. Now the powers that be to compete with open information have to make the access side of the equation much more important to maintain the status quo with such a disruptive technology. And that is another layer of the need for being able to say, degrade a Chinese model if a U.S. citizen the Govt doesn't like is trying to bypass the restrictions implemented on them using models made in the U.S.

In other words, KYC is about restoring the historical aspect of needing money to have information. And there is a class warfare aspect to looking at it that way.

[holoduke]

Maybe chinese are generally more positive about everything. Many European countries and the US are in a decline for some years now.

[Gigachad]

From what I've seen, The Chinese are more likely to believe the government has their back and the benefits of AI will be spread across the population. While Americans believe it will go towards billionaire mega yachts while they starve on the street.

[adamddev1]

Education systems and cultures that value "sounding" correct, repeating patterns and information, and immediate practical gain appear to like AI more that the cultures with a strong tradition of critical thinking. The cultures that love AI are the same cultures that will tend to build something cheap and quickly so that it can sell. The cultures that are less favorable are the ones that invest in building things correctly and solidly and value long term thinking. People with the immediate-gain-over-truth mindset love AI.

> https://www.visualcapitalist.com/survey-how-21-countries-vie...

A graph of corruption levels would also almost mirror the values in the first link. The more corrupt a country is, the more the public loves AI. AI enthusiasm is almost directly correlated to a general erosion of truth.

In the same way, those with a high value of correctness and stability, like people who work w Haskell, Agda, or Type Theory are not as enthusiastic about AI as people who copy and paste boilerplate and snippets for quick, practical react apps.