Fortune

FOCUS
TECH
‘BLACK MIRROR,’
SLIGHTLY BROKEN
China seeks artificial intelligence supremacy through
protectionism, state subsidies, and monopolies. But that
doesn’t mean the country will succeed. By Clay Chandler
STEP ASIDE, SHERLOCK. Detectives in China say
they can catch criminals using artificial intelligence—and
if you don’t believe them, consider
the case of the potato thief at the pop concert.
Oicials in the eastern Chinese city of Jiaxing
in May used A.I.-powered facial-recognition
technology to nab the alleged tater taker
from a crowd of more than 20,000 people
attending a performance by Hong Kong
crooner Jacky Cheung. Moments after passing
A screen
supported by a
facial-recognition
system displays
the image of a
jaywalker at an
intersection in
Nanjing, China,
in August 2017.
through the concert’s security system, the unsuspecting
suspect was busted: An algorithm
matched his face with an image from a database
of “most wanted” mug shots. Authorities
seized the man on charges of stealing $17,000
worth of potatoes.
The thief was the third fugitive to be arrested
at a Jacky Cheung concert in as many months
using software developed by Beijing’s Megvii,
among the many Chinese groups pioneering
ways to combine A.I. and facial-recognition
capabilities. Alibaba Group mobile payments
ailiate Ant Financial uses a “smile to pay”
feature to facilitate purchases at KFC. A high
school in Hangzhou monitors students’ attentiveness
in class. Traic police in Shenzhen
and other cities spot jaywalkers and reckless
bike couriers. A park near Beijing’s Temple of
Heaven uses the technology in a public restroom
to stop patrons from stealing toilet paper.
All of this hints at the extraordinary
zeal with which the world’s second-largest
economy has embraced A.I. President Xi Jinping
vows China will become the global leader
in artificial intelligence by 2030, creating a
domestic industry worth nearly $150 billion.
Should the rest of the world be alarmed by
China’s A.I. dreams? Perhaps not. Implicit
in most assessments of the country’s eforts,
whether by U.S. oicials or Chinese analysts,
is the shared assumption that the programs
will perform as advertised. Though Xi has
certainly stepped up support for state-owned
enterprises, tightened restrictions on foreign
firms, and doled out massive subsidies to key
sectors, his country’s future A.I. supremacy is
far from guaranteed. “Many of the challenges
of A.I. are global in nature,” reads a June report
from McKinsey on the subject, and “not
for government to solve alone.”
Kai-Fu Lee, the former head of Google China,
argues that A.I. is shifting from a U.S.-led Age
of Discovery to an Age of Implementation in
which China enjoys significant “structural advantages.”
The main drivers? Data, computing
power, and competent engineers—all of which
favor the world’s most populous nation.
Yet proponents of artificial intelligence
warn that it could wipe out millions of jobs, a
troubling prospect in a country that remains
so heavily dependent on repetitive manufacturing
jobs. How will China cope? Deep learning,
it seems, can also raise deep questions.
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FORTUNE.COM // JULY.1.18