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Although not explicitly what the report is focussed on, this resurfaces my, perhaps mislead, hope that AI will be the field to prove that the Chinese style of e

Although not explicitly what the report is focussed on, this resurfaces my, perhaps mislead, hope that AI will be the field to prove that the Chinese style of eduation will prove unfruitful. As someone attempting to work in this field right now I intepret it as something that although on the surface is highly mathematical/statistical at its base still rests on critical thinking and creativity. The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompatible with the authoritarian system currently in place in China. Maybe I'm naive and romantic about the Canadian/Western style of education and China will inevitablly dominate AI through force of will. However, my personal experience working with it, and experimenting with improvement in my own small corner of applied science tells me otherwise. Would be very curious to hear others thoughts on this, perhaps from people further along than I (still a lowly undergrad). Edit: I don't want my comment on math to imply that there is no creativity within mathematics. I've gone through too many heavy math courses to believe that. I'm instead trying to say that there is a place, even beyond mathematics, for creativity and intuition, where you don't need the mathematical understanding to build something novel.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
There are plenty of creative people in china that retain their creativity inspite of the rigid Chinese educational system. Yes, some kids will get beat down into obedience, but China has a lot of people, so some won’t. The bigger problem is just talent based: china isn’t taking much advantage of non chinese talent, while America is. The American talent pool for top tier talent is simply much larger than china’s despite having a much smaller population.
- clvcooke 9y ago
  I hadn't thought about talent pool and very good point. In my mind even if China did want to take advantage of this they may have issues due to their reputation (I for one would not want to live/work in china due to their blatent disrepect for IP). Follow up: Do those people then get encouraged to continue to foster their creativity within the system? Does the government, upon seeing that someone "withstood" their education change their approach and allow them to continue to explore?
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    It depends on your company, but creativity isn’t shunned in chinese industry, or even in Chinese PhD programs. Instead, you pay some lip service to some correct thought concepts and you are given wide freedom over the rest of your work, there is a lot of meritocracy allowed. Chinese are also actually quite clever in their subversion. I would say Japan and Korea are much worse than China, with very restrictive corporate cultures that are actually more Confucian than China.
  - squeegee5 9y ago
    The natural order of human civilization derides IP. In the absence of a supremely powerful, globe-spanning government, enforcement is impossible. In the presence of honest intellectuals, it is impossible to deny that all progress is gained by standing on the shoulders of giants. Yesterday's Nobel is today's homework. Attempts to embargo knowledge are not just backwards, but thermodynamically futile. Intellectual property management is archaic. And your other claims are borderline racist.
    - clvcooke 9y ago
      I am very sorry if I came across that way at all. I have nothing against chinese people, I am talking about the government here. If this style was prevelant in, say Russia, or the USA I would hope I would have the same opinion. I could be wrong about the government, and thats totally fine, but please please do not think I am at all racist.
      - fspeech 9y ago
        You seem to have an overly simplistic view of human nature which may have triggered gp's racist alarm. Look back into the history of Western science: plenty of creativity from scientists who grew up in the eras before creativity gained it's current exalted status. Likewise Chinese people won't all turn into automotons just because the Chinese government policy does not maximize their creative potentials.
        9y ago
- LiweiZ 9y ago
  Yet we Chinese have less top masters that revolutionize the fields they are in. I, too, believe we have more than enough number of brains to have the leaping happen. It's just the mind and behaviour of combination at individual level being dramatically reduced. And for the a few still hold them, the incentive to keep doing with combination mind and behaviour is simply negative. Hence, at the group level, there are less organically grown mature groups of individuals to provide foundation/platform for those capable and willing to do that. A metaphor I can think of are the soil and the seeds. How people perceive the soil leads to what people's expectations on the issue.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
zombieprocesses 9y ago
> The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompatible with the authoritarian system currently in place in China. This is such oft repeated nonsense. Creativity exists in authoritarian systems. Creativity existed during slavery. Creativity existed during the dark ages. It existed during the age of kings. It existed during religious tyranny. It always exists. > Maybe I'm naive and romantic about the Canadian/Western style of education and China will inevitablly dominate AI through force of will. What is canadian/western style education? It's so funny how we mock our education system as producing factory drones incapable of thinking but whenever china is mentioned, we pretend like our education system fosters creativity. People constantly regurgitating the trope about "creativity" and "china not having it" just shows how well brainwashed we are. I wonder how the chinese built their own unique civilization if they weren't creative? > Would be very curious to hear others thoughts on this, perhaps from people further along than I (still a lowly undergrad). It's a simple matter of wealth. If china can develop enough and get enough money to be able to spend time doing the research, then they will make progress. It's simply a matter of wealth, people, resources and stability. China has the people obviously. They have stability so far ( I doubt anyone is going to invade them and destabilize them a la opium wars ) and they appear internally stable as far as any can tell. They have a large enough territory. So it's simply a matter of wealth. Can they get wealthy enough to build universities, companies, etc to fund research? Creativity, research, etc has nothing to do with the political system. The authoritarian soviets were able to send people to space. Nazi germany was able to advance research on everything. So did imperial japan. The authoritarian and tyrannical european colonial powers ravaging most of the world made great contributions to science/knowledge. So did we while we were busy exterminating the natives and enslaving blacks. The system doesn't matter. People are just as creative in china as they are here. The system doesn't matter. It's a matter of wealth/funding and stability.
- clvcooke 9y ago
  Thanks for the reply, I guess we can agree to disagree on some points ha. I tried to keep my answer diplomatic and open to being told I was wrong so glad someone took me up on that :). In terms of your question on education, I have only experienced Canadian education but I have never thought of it producing "factory drones" , exactly the opposite. Some of the most creative thinking I have seen has been in the classroom, with professors/teachers asking us to point out their flaws, or think of better answers than they presented.
Nokinside 9y ago
I strongly disagree with your notion. The results of creativity spreading to the economy can be hampered by the government. But I strongly disagree that creativity and innovation can't flourish under authoritative regime. Educational system does not create or remove creativity, it's just a common myth. The reason why Chinese students look so mediocre is because they value science and engineering so much. It's seen as a path to good live. The creative people are still there, but there is more mediocrity because there are so many of them. China: 4.7 million STEM graduates per year = 34 per ten thousand. US: 0.56 million STEM graduates per year = 17 per ten thousand. Chinese have adopted market mechanism and Chinese companies compete on global free markets. Government is just coordinating and supporting the industry just like DARPA is doing in the US.
- clvcooke 9y ago
  Perhaps I phrased my point wrong. To me critical thinking/creativity and questioning authority are all intertwined. I see those attributes being emphasized very strongly here (in Canada), and from an outsiders point of view, less strongly in China. I actually didn't think that Chinese students were mediocre at all, my intepretation was that China was exceptionally strong in science and engineering due to that social tendency that you mentioned.
  - Nokinside 9y ago
    >To me critical thinking/creativity and questioning authority are all intertwined. And I maintain that this is just a story we tell to ourselves. Can you find anything to back it up. Two reasons for this. 1) Different cultures express same things differently and get same results using different methods. Direct challenge is not the only way. 2) Chinese are not especially obedient or submissive. Regional riots and unrest that you don't see in the news happen regularly. The way people solve their problems with government is very different from the West. Chinese priorities are in getting ahead in their life, not in political activism. If Chinese government fails to deliver economic growth they will have to deal with more rebellious people. Using Hoftedes research to compare different cultures: China has similar levels of individualism and their long term orientation is similar to Germany, South Korea and Taiwan, but their cultural uncertainty avoidance very low. It's lower than US, Germany South Korea or Japan. ps. Cultural comparisons in social sciences contain lots of BS but Hoftede's research is relatively solid. His research in IBM is classic. It has limitations but it is useful.
dlwdlw 9y ago
Having gone to school in China I think that the Chinese people not being creative is incorrect. The public US education system is just worse all around. However there are pockets of extremely high quality that exist but aren't indicative of the US as a whole. What is an advantage however is the US culture which promotes a certain type of courage. In degenerate cases it combines with bad education to become a naive form of arrogance and self indulgance. In the most actualized forms it combines with strong work ethic and refusal to look away from reality to create very big change. (ironically this freedom culture combines best with immigrant mentality) The Chinese are very creative, except this creativity is often expressed in trivial ways because the culture creates a sense of "fineness" with things. The US culturally has what the Chinese refer to as "the heroe's dream" where everyone imagines themselves the hero. I suspect Chinas large population as well as it's more authoritarian government plays a role. Historically pre-communist era even the "important" things were left to the imperial elite.
- clvcooke 9y ago
  My frame of reference is actually the Canadian education system, not the american one. I like to believe we are slightly better than the american's in terms of providing an better baseline education (this might be due to us being "socialist"). I do agree that both Canadian and American education has a lot to learn from China, however I think what you mentioned about courage is a really good point, and I guess maybe thats what I'm getting at. Thanks for the constructive point of view!
- danmaz74 9y ago
  I wold find surprising if Chinese people weren't creative; but what I would be curious to know is if that creativity wouldn't be stifled when it goes against the academic establishment, ie: how easy is it for a scientist to propose and pursue a novel theory that goes against the current scientific consensus - and thus, against his or her superiors' theories? Would that be a problem?
  - thisrod 9y ago
    > how easy is it for a scientist ... This is hard everywhere. I'm not sure who said, "knowledge advances one funeral at a time," but I'm sure that it wasn't Confucius.
cabalamat 9y ago
> this resurfaces my, perhaps mislead, hope that AI will be the field to prove that the Chinese style of eduation will prove unfruitful [...] > > The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompatible with the authoritarian system currently in place in China. It's always dangerous to believe something based on wishing it were true. Yes, China is an autocracy, and yes autocracies might hamper scientific and technological development (though there are many counterexamples). It would certainly be very convenient for the West if China's growth faltered because their political system can't do AI. But China has an impressive record of economic growth over the last 30 years. In a decade it will probably overtake the USA's GDP at current exchange rates to become the world #1 economy; with 4 time's the USA's population, China doesn't need as high GDP/head to have a total GDP much higher than USA. A rich China means they will have plenty of money for education and AI. Chinese people already score higher in IQ tests than westerners. It is quite likely that they will start selecting embryos for intelligence soon, and then there will be a bigger IQ gap -- with more people who're more intelligent, China will have a massive advantage in AI research (as well as everything else). It strikes me as entirely plausible that China will dominate the world in the 21st century, in AI research as well as economically and militarily.
libdjml 9y ago
I’ve never studied in China, but having spent a reasonable amount of time working in a Chinese tech company, I do agree. It’s not that there wasn’t creativity, but the culture very strongly did not allow for anyone to perform duties or tasks even moderately outside of exactly what they were told to. I think this definitely has and will hold them back.
casebash 9y ago
China still scores near the top of the international maths olympiads. These competitions are designed to force you to require creativity and not just memorise formulas So even if the system doesn't produce high average creativity, it seems to produce high creativity at the top level.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

There are plenty of creative people in china that retain their creativity inspite of the rigid Chinese educational system. Yes, some kids will get beat down into obedience, but China has a lot of people, so some won’t. The bigger problem is just talent based: china isn’t taking much advantage of non chinese talent, while America is. The American talent pool for top tier talent is simply much larger than china’s despite having a much smaller population.

clvcooke 9y ago
I hadn't thought about talent pool and very good point. In my mind even if China did want to take advantage of this they may have issues due to their reputation (I for one would not want to live/work in china due to their blatent disrepect for IP). Follow up: Do those people then get encouraged to continue to foster their creativity within the system? Does the government, upon seeing that someone "withstood" their education change their approach and allow them to continue to explore?
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  It depends on your company, but creativity isn’t shunned in chinese industry, or even in Chinese PhD programs. Instead, you pay some lip service to some correct thought concepts and you are given wide freedom over the rest of your work, there is a lot of meritocracy allowed. Chinese are also actually quite clever in their subversion. I would say Japan and Korea are much worse than China, with very restrictive corporate cultures that are actually more Confucian than China.
- squeegee5 9y ago
  The natural order of human civilization derides IP. In the absence of a supremely powerful, globe-spanning government, enforcement is impossible. In the presence of honest intellectuals, it is impossible to deny that all progress is gained by standing on the shoulders of giants. Yesterday's Nobel is today's homework. Attempts to embargo knowledge are not just backwards, but thermodynamically futile. Intellectual property management is archaic. And your other claims are borderline racist.
  - clvcooke 9y ago
    I am very sorry if I came across that way at all. I have nothing against chinese people, I am talking about the government here. If this style was prevelant in, say Russia, or the USA I would hope I would have the same opinion. I could be wrong about the government, and thats totally fine, but please please do not think I am at all racist.
    - fspeech 9y ago
      You seem to have an overly simplistic view of human nature which may have triggered gp's racist alarm. Look back into the history of Western science: plenty of creativity from scientists who grew up in the eras before creativity gained it's current exalted status. Likewise Chinese people won't all turn into automotons just because the Chinese government policy does not maximize their creative potentials.
      - 9y ago
LiweiZ 9y ago
Yet we Chinese have less top masters that revolutionize the fields they are in. I, too, believe we have more than enough number of brains to have the leaping happen. It's just the mind and behaviour of combination at individual level being dramatically reduced. And for the a few still hold them, the incentive to keep doing with combination mind and behaviour is simply negative. Hence, at the group level, there are less organically grown mature groups of individuals to provide foundation/platform for those capable and willing to do that. A metaphor I can think of are the soil and the seeds. How people perceive the soil leads to what people's expectations on the issue.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

zombieprocesses 9y ago

> The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompatible with the authoritarian system currently in place in China. This is such oft repeated nonsense. Creativity exists in authoritarian systems. Creativity existed during slavery. Creativity existed during the dark ages. It existed during the age of kings. It existed during religious tyranny. It always exists. > Maybe I'm naive and romantic about the Canadian/Western style of education and China will inevitablly dominate AI through force of will. What is canadian/western style education? It's so funny how we mock our education system as producing factory drones incapable of thinking but whenever china is mentioned, we pretend like our education system fosters creativity. People constantly regurgitating the trope about "creativity" and "china not having it" just shows how well brainwashed we are. I wonder how the chinese built their own unique civilization if they weren't creative? > Would be very curious to hear others thoughts on this, perhaps from people further along than I (still a lowly undergrad). It's a simple matter of wealth. If china can develop enough and get enough money to be able to spend time doing the research, then they will make progress. It's simply a matter of wealth, people, resources and stability. China has the people obviously. They have stability so far ( I doubt anyone is going to invade them and destabilize them a la opium wars ) and they appear internally stable as far as any can tell. They have a large enough territory. So it's simply a matter of wealth. Can they get wealthy enough to build universities, companies, etc to fund research? Creativity, research, etc has nothing to do with the political system. The authoritarian soviets were able to send people to space. Nazi germany was able to advance research on everything. So did imperial japan. The authoritarian and tyrannical european colonial powers ravaging most of the world made great contributions to science/knowledge. So did we while we were busy exterminating the natives and enslaving blacks. The system doesn't matter. People are just as creative in china as they are here. The system doesn't matter. It's a matter of wealth/funding and stability.

clvcooke 9y ago
Thanks for the reply, I guess we can agree to disagree on some points ha. I tried to keep my answer diplomatic and open to being told I was wrong so glad someone took me up on that :). In terms of your question on education, I have only experienced Canadian education but I have never thought of it producing "factory drones" , exactly the opposite. Some of the most creative thinking I have seen has been in the classroom, with professors/teachers asking us to point out their flaws, or think of better answers than they presented.

Nokinside 9y ago

I strongly disagree with your notion. The results of creativity spreading to the economy can be hampered by the government. But I strongly disagree that creativity and innovation can't flourish under authoritative regime. Educational system does not create or remove creativity, it's just a common myth. The reason why Chinese students look so mediocre is because they value science and engineering so much. It's seen as a path to good live. The creative people are still there, but there is more mediocrity because there are so many of them. China: 4.7 million STEM graduates per year = 34 per ten thousand. US: 0.56 million STEM graduates per year = 17 per ten thousand. Chinese have adopted market mechanism and Chinese companies compete on global free markets. Government is just coordinating and supporting the industry just like DARPA is doing in the US.

clvcooke 9y ago
Perhaps I phrased my point wrong. To me critical thinking/creativity and questioning authority are all intertwined. I see those attributes being emphasized very strongly here (in Canada), and from an outsiders point of view, less strongly in China. I actually didn't think that Chinese students were mediocre at all, my intepretation was that China was exceptionally strong in science and engineering due to that social tendency that you mentioned.
- Nokinside 9y ago
  >To me critical thinking/creativity and questioning authority are all intertwined. And I maintain that this is just a story we tell to ourselves. Can you find anything to back it up. Two reasons for this. 1) Different cultures express same things differently and get same results using different methods. Direct challenge is not the only way. 2) Chinese are not especially obedient or submissive. Regional riots and unrest that you don't see in the news happen regularly. The way people solve their problems with government is very different from the West. Chinese priorities are in getting ahead in their life, not in political activism. If Chinese government fails to deliver economic growth they will have to deal with more rebellious people. Using Hoftedes research to compare different cultures: China has similar levels of individualism and their long term orientation is similar to Germany, South Korea and Taiwan, but their cultural uncertainty avoidance very low. It's lower than US, Germany South Korea or Japan. ps. Cultural comparisons in social sciences contain lots of BS but Hoftede's research is relatively solid. His research in IBM is classic. It has limitations but it is useful.

dlwdlw 9y ago

Having gone to school in China I think that the Chinese people not being creative is incorrect. The public US education system is just worse all around. However there are pockets of extremely high quality that exist but aren't indicative of the US as a whole. What is an advantage however is the US culture which promotes a certain type of courage. In degenerate cases it combines with bad education to become a naive form of arrogance and self indulgance. In the most actualized forms it combines with strong work ethic and refusal to look away from reality to create very big change. (ironically this freedom culture combines best with immigrant mentality) The Chinese are very creative, except this creativity is often expressed in trivial ways because the culture creates a sense of "fineness" with things. The US culturally has what the Chinese refer to as "the heroe's dream" where everyone imagines themselves the hero. I suspect Chinas large population as well as it's more authoritarian government plays a role. Historically pre-communist era even the "important" things were left to the imperial elite.

clvcooke 9y ago
My frame of reference is actually the Canadian education system, not the american one. I like to believe we are slightly better than the american's in terms of providing an better baseline education (this might be due to us being "socialist"). I do agree that both Canadian and American education has a lot to learn from China, however I think what you mentioned about courage is a really good point, and I guess maybe thats what I'm getting at. Thanks for the constructive point of view!
danmaz74 9y ago
I wold find surprising if Chinese people weren't creative; but what I would be curious to know is if that creativity wouldn't be stifled when it goes against the academic establishment, ie: how easy is it for a scientist to propose and pursue a novel theory that goes against the current scientific consensus - and thus, against his or her superiors' theories? Would that be a problem?
- thisrod 9y ago
  > how easy is it for a scientist ... This is hard everywhere. I'm not sure who said, "knowledge advances one funeral at a time," but I'm sure that it wasn't Confucius.

cabalamat 9y ago

> this resurfaces my, perhaps mislead, hope that AI will be the field to prove that the Chinese style of eduation will prove unfruitful [...] > > The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompatible with the authoritarian system currently in place in China. It's always dangerous to believe something based on wishing it were true. Yes, China is an autocracy, and yes autocracies might hamper scientific and technological development (though there are many counterexamples). It would certainly be very convenient for the West if China's growth faltered because their political system can't do AI. But China has an impressive record of economic growth over the last 30 years. In a decade it will probably overtake the USA's GDP at current exchange rates to become the world #1 economy; with 4 time's the USA's population, China doesn't need as high GDP/head to have a total GDP much higher than USA. A rich China means they will have plenty of money for education and AI. Chinese people already score higher in IQ tests than westerners. It is quite likely that they will start selecting embryos for intelligence soon, and then there will be a bigger IQ gap -- with more people who're more intelligent, China will have a massive advantage in AI research (as well as everything else). It strikes me as entirely plausible that China will dominate the world in the 21st century, in AI research as well as economically and militarily.

libdjml 9y ago

I’ve never studied in China, but having spent a reasonable amount of time working in a Chinese tech company, I do agree. It’s not that there wasn’t creativity, but the culture very strongly did not allow for anyone to perform duties or tasks even moderately outside of exactly what they were told to. I think this definitely has and will hold them back.

casebash 9y ago

China still scores near the top of the international maths olympiads. These competitions are designed to force you to require creativity and not just memorise formulas So even if the system doesn't produce high average creativity, it seems to produce high creativity at the top level.