Reference News, September 2 report: The U.S. "Wall Street Journal" website published an article titled "China has a different vision for artificial intelligence, perhaps wiser", the following is the translated text:

The United States is investing large amounts of money and energy to surpass China in the next leap forward in artificial intelligence.

But China has chosen a completely different path.

Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, Silicon Valley has invested heavily to pursue the "holy grail" of artificial intelligence: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that can match or exceed human thinking. Supporters say it will bring the U.S. unparalleled military advantages, help cure cancer, solve climate change problems, and free humans from daily jobs such as accounting and customer service.

In contrast, China seems to favor making technology industry more application-oriented, building practical, low-cost tools aimed at improving efficiency and easy to promote.

These two different visions represent a high-stakes confrontation. The loser may fall behind in the most important technological field of the 21st century.

But if, as more and more people in Silicon Valley believe, AGI is still far away, then China will have the ability to take the lead, beat its global competitors, and fully utilize the current form of artificial intelligence and promote its application globally.

Media reports and government reports show that local Chinese AI models similar to ChatGPT have been used in grading exams, improving weather forecasts, enhancing police efficiency, and providing farmers with planting advice.

Tsinghua University is launching an AI hospital where doctors will be assisted by "virtual colleagues" who are equipped with the latest medical data. At the same time, intelligent robots are being deployed in "dark factories" of car manufacturers and arranged on textile production lines to detect product quality.

Julian Gavil, a former official at the U.S. National Security Council who was responsible for the technological competition with China during the Biden administration, said: "In their view, major impact AI applications are not theoretical topics for the future but technologies that can be utilized now."

Certainly, U.S. tech companies are also developing a wide range of practical applications using existing AI. However, unlike the U.S., which largely allows the industry to develop freely, the Chinese government fully supports its AI application vision.

This January, China established the National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund Partnership, with capital exceeding $8.4 billion. Local governments and state banks have also launched related funding support programs. As part of the "AI+" initiative, some cities have released their own AI development plans.

Recently, the State Council of China called for increased support, integrating AI into scientific research, industrial development, and other areas. Relevant documents point out that by 2030, AI will "comprehensively empower" high-quality development.

At the same time, China is more actively embracing open-source models. Users can download and participate in improving these models for free, allowing Chinese companies to build commercial applications at lower costs and higher efficiency. This strategy not only helps China promote its AI technology globally, but has even sparked imitation in Silicon Valley.

This focus differs from the ambitions of many large U.S. tech companies, which believe that machines capable of surpassing human thinking will revolutionize science, open up new exploration fields, and transform the U.S. military. For this reason, companies like Meta, Google, and OpenAI are competing不惜血本.

However, after the highly anticipated GPT-5 was released in August, many users were disappointed. The company had initially touted this model as an important milestone on the road to AGI. OpenAI founder Altman has admitted there were some hiccups in the release process and has tried to cool down the hype around AGI.

Other Silicon Valley giants have also begun to waver, starting to accept the view that China's approach may be more reasonable.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and analyst Selina Xu recently wrote in an article: "It is unclear when AGI will be achieved. If we focus solely on this goal, we may fall behind China. Compared to creating powerful AI that can surpass humans, China focuses more on utilizing our existing technology."

You can see China's preference for more practical application of AI in Xiongan New Area. According to local government reports, in February this year, Xiongan New Area launched an agricultural AI large model based on DeepSeek, a Chinese startup, to provide guidance to local farmers on crop planting and pest control. Local meteorological service departments are also using DeepSeek to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts.

At the same time, DeepSeek is helping local police analyze case reports and better handle emergency situations. The Xiongan branch of the public service convenience hotline 12345 is also using DeepSeek to improve service efficiency. (Translated by Wenyi)

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7545311102289117734/

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