Transcription
[Music] Al Jazeera podcasts.
Today, as China's school year begins, students as young as six will be studying artificial intelligence. It's a starting point for them to be able to be comfortable with the idea of artificial intelligence from a really young age. What lessons does this experiment hold for students? And what will it mean for China's future as the global tech race rages on? I'm Malikica Vilal and this is The Take.
[Music]
Before we continue with today's show, if you're watching us on YouTube or Spotify, leave us a comment. Tell us what you think about this episode and what stories you want us to do next. And if you're listening, you're going to want to check us out on those platforms to see us on video. While you're there, leave us a review telling us where you're listening from and give us a five-star rating on your favorite podcast app. It really helps the show.
I'm Katrina U. I am the correspondent for Al Jazeera English in China, based in Beijing.
And you are talking to me very late in Beijing right now. Indeed, it is 11 p.m.
Well, Katrina, it is great to have you on the take. This September, China is doing something it hasn't done before. Children as young as 6 years old will be trained in artificial intelligence literacy. So, it begs the question, what does that look like in the classroom?
Right. Well, China is strongly encouraging AI education for not just six-year-olds, but as soon as you start school to the end, a program of AI literacy. Obviously, you just start, you can't, you know, you're at school, you can't read. And so, it's not really about getting these kids to have a deep knowledge of AI, but it's about sparking their interest in AI. What does that look like? I guess most likely bringing them maybe to a robot convention, showing them videos of robots, talking to them about how they might be helpful in their lives, in their families, in their households, and in the country. And the aim is that these six-year-olds will one day grow up and be very good users of AI.
That's the hope. Yeah.
Mhm. So six-year-olds will grow up and totally know how artificial intelligence works. But for the secondary schoolers, middle schoolers, high schoolers, this is about what ethics, right and wrong. What do you think is happening there?
So we don't know what AI education is going and AI is going to look like in the next 10 years but when you get into middle school now you'll be able to use different applications you know chatbots uh different visual applications on the phone you'll also be learning about the ethics of AI you'll be learning about privacy social responsibility issues you'll be learning the basics about what goes in the back end of AI and the higher levels of high school that you get, you'll learn about what goes into actually making that. And I'm sure the hope from the Chinese government's point of view will be that some of these kids will grow up and be AI engineers or contribute to AI in some form or fashion.
Okay. So, you talked about the potential hope there. In April, China's President Xiinping spoke about AI as a strategic technology. General Secretary Xin Ping noted that the party central committee attaches great importance to the development of AI. The CPC has improved the top level design and strengthened implementation efforts in recent years. Why do you think there is such an emphasis on AI in China?
Xiinping has made it his mission to achieve this great rejuvenation of China by the year 2049 which basically means he wants China to be really advanced, prosperous, he calls it modern socialist society and Xiinping believes artificial intelligence is crucial to getting to that goal. Somehow whoever is able to really use AI will be one of the most powerful, most advanced, most influential countries in the world. And he believes that so strongly that he doesn't want to leave it to market forces. He genuinely believes that the state is responsible for doing what it can to get its country there. So that's why we're seeing all this investment. That's why we're seeing these education mandates. Um, so that's one part of it. I think the other part is that Xiinping as a leader since he's come to power, it's been really evident that he's kind of obsessed with narratives. And artificial intelligence, as we know, is not just this objective entity that will speak the truth or whatever that is. It is imbued with the ideas, the philosophies, the histories, the ideologies of whoever creates it. And we're seeing people go to chat dpt or these chatbots for not just not using it as Google as you for direction in their life. They're having an influence on people. So Xiinping also is conscious of China as not just a rival with Western countries when it comes to the economic sphere, geopolitical sphere, the military sphere. It's also an old rivalry with countries like the US when it comes to ideas. And one of the things that artificial intelligence does is it it powers these large language models. So I think China also wants to make sure that it is in the AI game writing its own LLMs and playing a part in contributing to that world narrative. And that is also part of the mission I think.
Well, you mentioned the rivalry there. In the US, 250 CEOs, including the heads of LinkedIn, Uber, Salesforce, signed an open letter to lawmakers criticizing the US for not doing something similar to what we're seeing roll out in China. So, you've talked about why this is so important to China being the narrative. But when I think of narrative, I'm imagining a bunch of squirmy six-year-olds. Instead of using crayons to color, they are using AI to generate things from their imagination, pictures of their home and what they did that day. There's no more coloring outside the lines because AI has got it. Is there conversation online in China about what this will look like? Will it look like that?
I think when we look at the guidelines that the government released about this strongly urging the AI uh a AI to be in Chinese curriculum, they specifically say that they don't want AI to be thinking for the kids. They want them to be able to use AI without those things. But it's kind of difficult, right? because you're teaching kids about how useful this is, how great this is. But no, no, don't don't you don't use it. Just I'm just, you know, telling you an app. This is a thing the rest of the world will have to kind of figure out like how are we going to teach our children how to use AI without it harming their ability to think for themselves. And what I'm seeing from the Chinese government especially is this very conscious move to make sure that that population kind of embrace AI that they're not scared of it that they will see it as a positive.
Well, Katrina, you have reported on how the Chinese government is pouring billions into not just AI development but also into the creation of robotics that can run that AI. And you got to see this up close and personal at the World Robotics Conference in Beijing.
Yeah.
I've seen a video of you exploring this conference and it's really quite something to see. So tell us about what you saw or should I say who you met.
Um 200 companies were presenting their robots at this conference and the theme was embodied intelligence. So, you know, a lot of us, many of us may have chatbots on our phone, but it's about giving those chatbots a body, human or animal or otherwise. And so, first of what impressed me was the scale of this.
[Music]
They had fighting robots in a boxing ring. They had robots that were playing the drums, playing the piano, making coffee, serving popcorn. They had freakily human looking robots, you know, with like the silicon skin that that is, you know, with the hair, with the eye movements. You know, in China, there are hundreds of companies creating humanoid robots to do all sorts of things. One of the robots that impressed me was a robot that has been designed by UB Tech and their robots are being used in some electric vehicle factories in China. And they have now come up with a robot that can change its own battery. Like it literally takes a battery out of its back while still having another battery. It knows when its battery is low. It replaces it and then it goes on working.
Incredible. There is now a worker, a factory worker that doesn't rest, doesn't sleep,
doesn't take breaks, doesn't eat, doesn't complain, can work 24/7. So that's like something I thought was only in movies, but that's already happening. Another thing that surprised me is there were so many kids at this thing and it was geared towards kids. You know, the first time my three-year-old saw a robot was in person was at the mall. this like dog looking robot. And the first thing my three-year-old did was freak out because like
it's animal, but it's not quite an. But the more you see it, the more you interact with it, the more you get used to it, the more um interested you are and welcoming of this kind of technology. Potentially that humanoid robot could be walking their dog and cooking their food at home. It could be
not teaching them at school, but it could be like the assistant teacher at their school one day. Who knows?
As the technology increases, they can become much more lifelike. So, it won't feel like they're an anomaly, this robotic thing that's like a human or that's like an animal. You actually spoke to one who's not quite there yet. Tell me about that that exchange.
So, um I just wanted to have a conversation. I said, "I'm Katrina
from Al Jazeera." And then I waited for a response maybe five seconds. It was thinking, you know, it was like thinking.
Nice to meet you too, Katrina. It's great to connect with a journalist from Algeria.
It's great to meet a journalist from Algeria.
So, not quite. I mean, and then I corrected it and then it apologized to me. So, that was nice. But the technology, who knows, 5 years from now, that that could have been a much smoother conversation. and it was a warm tone. That's obviously not the most advanced. I'm sure some company in the back of their warehouse has some secret project that's even more advanced going on. And so there is so much investment. I've covered so many AI stories. For me, I feel like AI is
it's such a huge thing. And this analyst I was talking to, she says, you know, there is no other government that is so enthusiastic as China in really making a bet on AI. They are really hoping this is going to pay off because if you look at other governments, especially in the West, they're actually kind of afraid because they are are afraid of the impact this is going to have on their labor force. They're afraid of people losing their jobs. And so they're they're kind of just tentative, maybe wait and see. in some cases even holding back with AI. But China is going all in. So one of the reasons for that is that China is in the middle of a demographic crisis, aging population. There is a concern that the labor force that powered its breakneck economic growth that that era could quickly end. And I think they're also hoping that the solution to that will be AI could be humanoid robots in factories instead of the millions of people who now power those industries. We'll have more with Katrina after the break.
You know, Katrina, you and I um through so much of this conversation are being kind of jovial because so much of this conversation feels very sci-fi and feels fun and and light. There's also another sector where AI is increasingly being used and that has people nervous and that is in warfare. So a big part of any country's identity is its military and we know that President Xi has also vowed to have a worldclass military by 2050. How does China talk about AI when it comes to conflict?
I think Xiinping has made it very clear that AI is going to play a crucial role in China's military, not just tomorrow, but but today. We just had in Beijing, the whole city shut down for this massive military parade on September the 3rd, which was marking the end of World War II. The crowd of more than 50,000 waved Chinese flags, cheering as thousands of soldiers marched in perfect unison. Several hundred ground weapon systems on display. over 100 aircraft,
lots of soldiers goostepping. It was a spectacle and a lot of military analysts. The messages that I got afterwards were really remarking on not only the advanced tanks, the advanced jets, the advanced hypersonic missiles, but so many different types of drones, so many different types of unmanned um ships, unmanned um submarine vehicles. The phrase that I heard was that the army of the future is the army of no man and that the future of warfare could be fought with all of these unmanned vehicles. And one analyst I spoke to said, "Well, if you remove the person from a ship, then you don't need to worry about defending the ship or arming it in a certain way. It really just changes the game. You have um you can have all these vehicles. You can have these have a swarm attack. AI will be used in the way that a battlefield is scanned in surveillance and reconnaissance in early warning. It can be used in training I think is also begging the question of other governments and I mean the kind of investments they're making in their military are they making the right investments or should they also be thinking about a war that can be fought with all these unmanned technologies?
Yeah. Well, Katrina, at the same time, there's also another battle. We touched on this earlier, but I want to dive in a little deeper here, and that is about the battle for dominance in AI specifically when it comes to the technology that powers it. So, AI chips, can you tell us a little bit about those?
Well, not being engineer an engineer. I think in simple terms, AI requires a lot of computing power and the US had control over the creation of the best semiconductors. If you think of companies like Nvidia for example at the forefront of this kind of technology, I think there was a recognition from the previous US Biden administration that maybe they shouldn't be sending their best semiconductors to China because one day they could be used at China's arrival could be used against the US militarily. And so they started systematically restricting the access of semiconductors to the Chinese market. Now at the beginning that was quite devastating for Chinese companies who relied on this kind of technology. But it has also spurred the Chinese government to really be on a mission for self-reliance to realize hey maybe we shouldn't be relying on the US for something that is so important to our mission and our future. maybe we should create a homegrown industry. And that is exactly what China has done. And it's been slow, painful, and expensive. But China now is progressing in the creation of its own semiconductors. And I think you have the creation or the founding of companies like Deepseek that suddenly came on the global stage seemingly out of nowhere earlier this year. Deepseek caused those ripples in the US because Deepseek is a Chinese artificial intelligence company
and it has emerged as a real player in the AI arms race. It's called Deep Seek and investors and I would imagine officials in Washington are stunned to learn that Deep Seek's AI model has developed technology that can actually be competitive with Open AI and Google and XAI and all these more established players. and it freaked out the stock market and the whole tech industry in the United States because it really challenged this narrative. So
China has now
got an industry that many experts would acknowledge that yes it is still behind the US but maybe it's not as far behind as we thought and some nationalist commentators on in China say actually thank you to the US thank you to the Biden administration for doing that because that really lit a fire under the bottom of policy makers in China and they're not going to need to go to anyone else for semiconductors to power their AI dreams of the future.
AI dreams of the future. So Katrina, before we go, you and I have a couple of things in common and that is that we are both elder millennials and we both have young kids who are not quite school age yet but will be soon. and your kids are growing up in a world where AI will be something they learn most likely in school. When you think of their future, do you ever wonder how different it will be from the upbringing that you had
all the time? I think it's already so different. Technology is such a huge part of our lives and I wonder what kind of part it's going to play in their future when they grow up, what kind of jobs they're going to have. And I think there's like two sides of the coin. And my husband and I talk about this all the time. He's kind of the pessimistic, oh no, of kind of not panicking, but a little worried about what their future is going to look like. I'm choosing to be optimistic. I'm hoping that whatever world they grow up with, a in with AI, that it's going to free up their time to be more creative, to be more expressive, that it will celebrate the things that make them human, that it might take away jobs. sure that are process oriented, that are repetitive, but maybe the future will be a better one. I don't know what it's like. It's changing so quickly, but I can only choose to be hopeful.
And I think that there's no point in trying to shield them from it. I think AI will be an inevitable part of their life. So, as a parent, I think it's also my prerogative to be on top of that and to be curious and open and um resist the elder millennial ways of not moving on this and and see where it takes takes um not just my kids, but all of us.
Yeah. Katrina, thank you for this conversation and for letting us in on what it's like in Beijing right now.
Thank you so much, Malikica. It's been a pleasure talking to you.
[Music]