back to article Chinese teen braniacs are being trained to build new AI weapons

A top Chinese university has recruited a select group of whizkids straight from high school to develop new AI weapons. The Beijing Institute of Technology, which is piloting the scheme, is renowned for weaponry science and technology. It receives funding from the Chinese government, the Commission for Science, Technology and …

  1. onefang

    Have the Chinese authorities been watching WarGames, and decided to take the next logical step? Remember kids, the only winning move is not to play.

    1. Semtex451
      Terminator

      Or any minute now someone will arrive from the future to terminate someone who hasn't invented something yet....or somesuch.

  2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    On the Western Front ... Rampant Discontent Generates Momentum and Discovers Alternate Direction

    China’s aspirations of becoming the world leader in AI by 2030 are clear.

    An aspiration which will be assisted by the migration of necessary knowledge from vital key assets which are being ignored and/or misunderestimated in the West. Such is only natural ..... and much to be feared whenever ever present and gravely to be regarded.

    1. Semtex451
      Windows

      Re: On the Western Front ... Rampant Discontent Generates Momentum and Discovers Alternate Direction

      A welcome if disappointingly brief comment from you dear Sir.

    2. James 51

      Re: On the Western Front ... Rampant Discontent Generates Momentum and Discovers Alternate Direction

      Out of the mouth from amanfromMars 1... Short, concise, coherent, intelligent and insightful. It's times like this I start checking the dregs of my tea for any residue.

  3. Christoph

    If the West is in trouble

    We'd better expand our programme of welcoming and encouraging highly qualified people from other countries to come and work for us. Only a lunatic would do anything to discourage those people.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If the West is in trouble

      > We'd better expand our programme of welcoming and encouraging highly qualified people from other countries to come and work for us.

      The US runs in practice a huge distillation column extracting the top qualified people and with salaries to match. They have done so for decades and know how to keep doing it.

      If on the other hand this was a veiled Brexit argument, the reality is that the UK decides still who to attract, accept or reject. I know - I had to apply to enter your country and my academic qualifications were my only qualifications. In practice, the real difference is pay which in the US is significantly higher than in Europe. Also funding for R&D is greater in the US and that is in many cases the more important part, especially for post doc researchers.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If the West is in trouble

      What if becoming dependent on immigration for both low and high paid jobs is a bigger problem? The long term answer is to reduce dependence by educating local people with the required skills, supporting a sustainable population and, er, using more automation and AI. AI doesn't have to be locally developed, it can be bought from partner / friendly nations, without migration of talent.

      Another "problem" the west has is the desire among a political clique to prioritise running / controlling the world over the interests of their own people, including a series of military interventions that may have been avoidable. Perhaps a more multipolar world that endures greater influence from non-Western powers would allow Western nations to focus on their own population's interests for a change? I guess I must be a lunatic then...

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: If the West is in trouble

        I guess I must be a lunatic then... ... Anonymous Coward

        And the right sort of lunatic too, to boot, by all accounts That's at least a doubly whammy of a Rare Resolve and Acceptance.... for Worthy Epic Realisation.

        A little something Learned Upper Chambers are working on/working with?

        What say Lords and Ladies of Lands? Are you Au Fait and in Any Position to Change the Future to an Easier Managed, Live Operational Virtual Environment where Earthed Assets are Carefully Provided with All Future Necessary Information for Dealing with Beings of Advanced IntelAIgents.

        Such Open Spaces and Virtualised Places are the NEUKlearer HypeRadioProACTive Frontier .... and Present Battle Space to Always Graciously Lose in. For the Release of New Powers in Surrender and Submission to Direction from A.N.Others.

        1. onefang

          Re: If the West is in trouble

          "Are you Au Fait and in Any Position to Change the Future to an Easier Managed, Live Operational Virtual Environment where Earthed Assets are Carefully Provided with All Future Necessary Information for Dealing with Beings of Advanced IntelAIgents."

          I'm working on it with my SledjHamr project. Though the Earthed bit is optional.

          1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

            If the West is in trouble, Bash and Crash it with SledjHamr Projects. Put its IT out of IT Misery.

            I'm working on it with my SledjHamr project. Though the Earthed bit is optional. ... onefang

            Quite so, onefang. Take a horse to water it won't drink renders it a dead duck in a zombie market to be abandoned and replaced by another more fit for future greater purpose

            in any case, there's also "data overload". The solution is to turn data into 'information' rather than 'a bunch of meaningless, uh, data'. then you present the information, executive summary first, with drill-down capability for those who really want that ...... bombastic bob

            The future secret solution is to turn data into information streams for intelligent reprogramming of base core source assumptions which extraordinarily render Alternate Pictures/AIMaster Piloted Realities for Program Virtualisation/Media Presentation/MMORPGPlay of which Are you Au Fait and in Any Position to Change the Future to an Easier Managed, Live Operational Virtual Environment where Earthed Assets are Carefully Provided with All Future Necessary Information for Dealing with Beings of Advanced IntelAIgents. is surely only just an explosive blue touch paper fuse?

            It is why those burdened with foul secrets fear new developments and shared words on novel projects which need not their crooked biased input/outut. They be prisoners to the past and the dastardly deeds of ignorant and arrogant others, and that is prime indicative of a lack of intelligence for future greater well-being. And this is not normal in current times and stranger spaces where data, information and intelligence is easily made universally available with these tools and platforms at our beck and call and fingertips.

    3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: If the West is in trouble

      We'd better expand our programme of welcoming and encouraging highly qualified people from other countries to come and work for us. Only a lunatic would do anything to discourage those people. ... Christoph

      Don't listen to lunatics discouraging people. By their actions are they easily identified surely.

  4. imanidiot Silver badge

    A scary combination

    I don't like the combination of China's overal collectivist culture, it's communist (and often draconian) regime and AI weaponry. It can only end badly imho.

    1. James 51

      Re: A scary combination

      It's the draconian regime that views people who totally submit as a resource to be exploited and any resistance, even if it is ideologically consistent with the values they are suppose to embody as diseased fiends to be stamped out with religious fervour combined with the imperialist aggression as displayed with the invasion and annexation of other countries territory in the south china sea part that worries me. AI weaponry will only embolden that behaviour.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @James 51 - Re: A scary combination

        As opposed to US where people who totally submit (those who don't too) are definitely not considered as resources to be exploited. No, sireee!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @James 51 - Re: A scary combination

        Speaking about invasion, do you happen to have a list of countries bombed by US ? Good, now compare with the Chinese one.

        1. James 51

          Re: @James 51 - A scary combination

          Ask Tibetans and muslims living in the west of China about that.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Experience from Japan

    ... is that the only ones to solve a problem are gloomy 14 year olds, put in strange costumes and plugged into giant machinery.

    What could possibly go wrong?

  6. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Thirty one teenagers, all under 18 years old, were carefully selected for the “experimental program for intelligent weapons systems,”

    Dunno why, but this phrase from this source brings up a picture of a brain in a canister being lowered into a hypersonic jet. Probably my imagination running wild. For the time being.

  7. juice

    So...

    Some 18 year kids are going to university to study AI related topics. A field which is currently having enough money thrown at it to make Scrooge McDuck think about buying a second swimming pool; by the time they emerge from their chrysalis, anything they've learned will probably be obsolete.

    It's a puff piece.

    Or maybe it's not, and in a few years time, I'll be one of the many welcoming our new robotic overlords. Who knows?

  8. Magani
    Holmes

    Dubious Acquisition Technique

    First, the country has to play catch up to the rest of the world...

    Dead easy. They'll do what they've always done - steal it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Magani - Re: Dubious Acquisition Technique

      small correction here, ...do what others have always done..

  9. Rich 2 Silver badge
    Mushroom

    How stupid are we?

    ....and we have these people building nuclear power plants here in Blighty?

    Jeeeez....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Rich 2 - Re: How stupid are we?

      Are you afraid of some reverse Opium Wars ?

  10. Denarius
    Meh

    Remember Fifth Gen computers ?

    Nothing happened then and AI wont happen now other than China will have practice making AI accelerators for their home grown CPUs. See that recent TED talk on why AI is a waste of time. Expert systems not so much. However the Wests growing stupidity is a real problem.

  11. I&I

    Long-term sustainable formal-knowledge management has been solved ?

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