China

China Is Building a Fleet of Autonomous AI

A fleet of autonomous, AI-powered submarines is headed into hotly-contested Asian waterways. The vehicles will belong to the Chinese armed forces, and their mission capabilities are likely to raise concerned eyebrows in surrounding countries. If all goes to plan, the first submarines will launch in 2020.

China’s Silicon Valley Faces Meltdown Fears

Shenzhen is a long way from Silicon Valley. Tech companies are housed in gleaming skyscrapers rather than on rolling campuses; there is scarcely a hoodie to be seen and the Communist Party influence is never far away. Just across the border from Hong Kong and lying in the Pearl River Delta, this metropolis of some 12 million people is home to some of Chinaâs biggest tech players, including the social media giant Tencent valued at over $500 billion and telecom equipment groups ZTE and Huawei.

China Is Going to Be the First Country to Land on the Dark Side of the Moon

China has launched a communications satellite to the Moon

China’s space agency has taken a critical first step toward an unprecedented robotic landing on the far side of the Moon. On Monday, local time, theChina Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation launched aLong March 4C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. Although it did not broadcast the launch, the Chinese space agency said it went smoothly, according to the state news service Xinhua.

Fast fashion: for an e-commerce model in China, 150 outfits in 13 hours is a day’s work

Debtors in China Shamed on Highway Billboard Featuring Their Faces and Names

White House Considers Restricting Chinese Researchers Over Espionage Fears

The White House is discussing whether to limit the access of Chinese citizens to the United States, including restricting certain types of visas available to them and greatly expanding rules pertaining to Chinese researchers who work on projects with military or intelligence value at American companies and universities. The exact types of projects that would be subject to restrictions are unclear, but the measures could clamp down on collaboration in advanced materials, software and other technologies at the heart of Beijing’s plan to dominate cutting-edge technologies like advanced microchips, artificial intelligence and electric cars, known as Made in China 2025.

China is monitoring employees’ brain waves and emotions

Chinese businesses and the military are monitoring employees’ brain activity and emotions. The ’emotional surveillance technology’ helps employers identify mood shifts so they can change break times, an employee’s task, or even send them home. The technology reportedly increases productivity and profitability, with one company claiming its profits jumped by $315 million.

China’s Strategic Ambiguity and Shifting Approach to Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems

U.S. bans American companies from selling to Chinese phone maker ZTE

Is the Chinese Language a Superstition Machine?

English speakers are sanguine about homophony—often blithely, so that they make little attempt to clarify meanings even when the context leaves open the possibility of more than one. In one study led by Victor Ferreira, people were asked to describe objects in visual scenes that showed both a baseball bat and a flying bat—but they ambiguously referred to either of these as simply “the bat,” under some conditions as often as 63 percent of the time.

This Chinese Facial Recognition Surveillance Company Is Now the World’s Most Valuable AI Startup

China’s Social Credit: Rewards and Punishments

Like private credit scores, a person’s social score can move up and down depending on their behaviour. The exact methodology is a secret — but examples infractions include bad driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake news online.

China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

Depending on their score bracket, residents hold a grade ranging from A+++ to D. Some offenses can hurt the score pretty badly. For drunk driving, for example, one’s score plummets straight to a C. On the other hand, triple As are rewarded with perks such as being able to rent public bikes without paying a deposit (and riding them for free for an hour and a half), receiving a $50 heating discount every winter, and obtaining more advantageous terms on bank loans.

Who really came up with China’s ‘four new inventions’?

China claims it invented high-speed rail, mobile payments, e-commerce and bike-sharing, but did it?

China Is Building a Rain-Making System Three Times as Big as Spain

FCC says it will block Chinese technology to protect national security

Lax regulation made it cheaper for China to outsource pork production to the US

Shenzhen’s Homegrown Cyborg

Huaqiangbei, the famed electronics bazaar in Shenzhen, China, hums with the chaotic unity of a thousand symbiotic organisms. Stacks of circuit boards, cables, and colorful components extend farther than the eye can see. Sellers hawk their wares from Tetris-like cubicles crammed around claustrophobic aisles.

Deciphering China’s AI Dream

This report examines the intersection of two subjects, China and artificial intelligence, both of which are already difficult enough to comprehend on their own. It provides context for China’s AI strategy with respect to past science and technology plans, and it also connects the consistent and new features of China’s AI approach to the drivers of AI development (e.g. hardware, data, and talented scientists). In addition, it benchmarks China’s current AI capabilities by developing a novel index to measure any country’s AI potential and highlights the potential implications of China’s AI dream for issues of AI safety, national security, economic development, and social governance.

China to bar people with bad ‘social credit’ from planes, trains

Why Is China Burning Up Its Space Station in the Sky?

Chinese Startups See Latin America as a Land of Opportunity