An explanation on why China’s tech success stories are turning established narratives on democratic freedoms and innovation on their head.
Matt Sheehan is a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research covers global technology issues with a focus on China. His research projects explore China’s artificial intelligence ecosystem, the future of Chinese technology policy, and the role of technology in China’s political economy. Matt is the author of The Transpacific Experiment: How China and California Collaborate and Compete for our Future (Counterpoint Press, 2019).
From 2010-2016 Matt lived and worked in China, including as the first China correspondent for the World Post. After returning from China, Matt worked as a fellow at the Paulson Institute's think tank, MacroPolo, where he led research on Chinese technology issues. In 2018, he was selected as a finalist for the Young China Watcher of the Year award.
His writing has been published by the Atlantic, Bloomberg, Vice, and Wired. His research has been cited by numerous government agencies and media outlets, including the National Security Commission on AI, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Matt reads, writes, and speaks Mandarin Chinese.
An explanation on why China’s tech success stories are turning established narratives on democratic freedoms and innovation on their head.
How face swap apps, investigative journalism, and corporate thought leadership shaped governance.
Despite the summit’s modest expectations, Carnegie fellows saw welcomed outcomes on economic, military, and AI issues.
It’s the latest in a long tradition of California officials engaging with China on climate issues.
Over the past two years, China has enacted some of the world’s earliest and most sophisticated regulations targeting AI.
California is ground zero for engagement.
A conversation about how the public, corporations, academia, and civil society end up directly influencing some of China’s most important regulations.
Maybe most importantly the regulations so far do not bear the hallmark of a classic Xi intervention, which usually means taking a very hard line and potentially unrealistic policy stance that prizes control and Xi’s other priorities over everything else.
Beijing is leading the way in AI regulation, releasing groundbreaking new strategies to govern algorithms, chatbots, and more. Global partners need a better understanding of what, exactly, this regulation entails, what it says about China’s AI priorities, and what lessons other AI regulators can learn.
The answer to the question of who is winning the U.S.-China AI race is simple and unsettling: Artificial intelligence is winning, and the world is nowhere near ready for what it will bring.