Kai-Fu Lee Talks China, Government Innovation, and the Future of Humanity
Last week, the Cambridge University Technology and Enterprise Club hosted a wide-ranging conversation with Kai-Fu Lee, an entrepreneur, business executive, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) expert.
Sinovation Ventures, the venture capital firm that Lee runs, invests in AI start-ups. This reflects Lee’s overall bullish view on the technology, particularly within the Chinese context. To understand why Lee is so excited about the prospects of investing in China, let’s uncover some of the main differences between the innovation ecosystems in Silicon Valley compared to China.
Innovation in the East and West
Over the last decade, Lee noted that there has been an increase in VC funding attracted to China. There are a handful of factors that has made China an attractive place for investment, including the rapidly rising middle class, the widespread interest in entrepreneurship on a grassroots level, the government’s centrally planned approach to innovation.
This infusion of cash has been a boon for innovation and a contrast to the traditional Western perception of Chinese technical innovation as copying Silicon Valley.
Simultaneously, China experienced rapid and widespread growth in the use of mobile technologies, leading to the cultivation of an unprecedented amount of data from its 1.4 billion citizens. This gave an advantage to Chinese companies using the neural network approach to AI, which requires large datasets and massive technical capacity — both of which China has in abundance.
Lee argues that this extensive digitalisation has enabled the country to forge “a brand-new model of company building.”
Drawing a contrast from his early days as an AI investor, Lee notes that today China has a large supply of data scientists capable of applying AI tech in products. While this profusion of talent is an asset for start-ups, it has also created an extremely competitive — and, some argue, unhealthy — work environment.
What is the government’s role in tech development?
Lee rejected the idea that governments should become too heavily involved in the process of AI innovation. He described his belief in free markets to create the best products. Believing that it is “very dangerous for governments to pick winners” because they are not trained to be investors, he argued that it makes more sense for public sector funding bodies to act as Limited Partners (LPs) in VC firms.
However, Lee signalled the twofold role of government to provide the necessary infrastructure to foster AI innovation and to establish strong rules and regulations to mitigate the potential ethical risks associated with AI.
From a historical perspective, governments have played a large part in the development of technologies that underpin contemporary innovation, such as GPS and the underlying structure of the internet. The recent rise of scrappy, cutting-edge GovTech (Government Technology) start-ups points to a 21st century model in which public-private partnerships are used to catalyse and foster digital innovation for public purpose.
While it is clear that public sector organisations must play a role in the development of technologies such as AI, Lee’s minimalist view on government intervention is shared by many who want public innovation to promote rather than stifle innovation.
AI and the future of humanity
The ethical issues surrounding AI are one of many existential risks to humanity that come with the rapid development of this technology.
Lee sought to dispel myths that the development of AI means the complete demise of the human workforce, clarifying that “AI doesn’t replace people, it replaces tasks.” In this way, the beginning of the transition towards an AI-enabled future will look like certain aspects of jobs being replaced by AI. Eventually, however, the cumulative effects of this transformation will result in an employment landscape whereby humans are focused on certain tasks while AI-driven machines assist with others.
To better understand this phenomenon, take the example of an office receptionist. Some receptionists’ tasks can be easily undertaken by AI: verifying visitors’ identification documents, providing them with a badge, monitoring their movements within a building. However, in Lee’s view, it will be difficult for machines to fully replace the more human elements of a receptionist’s job such as warmly welcoming guests and acting as a polished, professional representative of the company.
This perspective is contested by experts such as Japanese researchers that are creating AI-powered robots that approximate the compassionate elements of human interaction. But in the short term, the more realistic situation in most contexts seems to be Lee’s hybrid model of AI augmenting the work of human workers.
How future proof your job
Despite the inevitable changes that will come out of the upcoming AI revolution, Lee noted a few skillsets people can develop to mitigate the risk of job loss to machines.
The first AI-proof skillset is creativity. This includes common sense, multi-domain reasoning, asking smart questions, and thinking strategically. AI is very good at giving solutions to well-defined jobs. It’s not good at dealing with uncertainty or thinking outside of the box.
The second skillset is human touch. There is perhaps nothing more deeply human than the connections that bind us together. We require warmth, caring, and compassion. Jobs in which these are necessary will be very hard for AI to replace.
More broadly speaking, Lee highlighted education as the best way to remain competitive in an AI-fuelled job market — a topic that will be discussed in future articles on the CUTEC blog.
Looking Forward
Lee’s final remarks painted a positive picture of the mainstreaming of AI. While there are certainly risks and threats, he believes that we should not forget that “we live in a remarkable time” for AI. Mobile tech has changed the way we interact with each other and the digital world. The continued development of the Internet of Things is on track to have an equally meaningful impact.
Most importantly, he underscored the idea that AI is an omni use technology that will change the world, and that there has never been a better time to work on this technology. Many questions remain about AI and its integration into the daily lives of “naturally” intelligent beings. But students should feel empowered to leverage this transformative technology to make a positive impact on society.
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Listen to Lee’s full talk here.
