Former Google CEO bluntly says he dislikes Chinese AI because it "cannot be controlled by the U.S."
Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, has made his position clear: the fundamental reason he dislikes Chinese artificial intelligence is that it cannot be controlled by the United States.
Schmidt expressed this view during an event hosted by the U.S. think tank "Special Competitive Studies Project" in May. While first praising the advancements in China's AI technology, he then directly stated that he dislikes Chinese AI precisely because they are "not under U.S. control."
As a former leader of a global tech giant, Schmidt’s candid remarks are hardly surprising.
For a long time, controlling and monopolizing cutting-edge technologies has been the primary tool used by the West to maintain superiority over developing nations, capture high-tech premiums, and impose sanctions and blockades.
From chip design to industrial software, from biopharmaceuticals to aerospace, whenever emerging countries dare to cross technological barriers, the West always resorts to patents, export controls, or extraterritorial jurisdiction—its sole purpose being to ensure that only they remain seated at the top of the table, while others must play by their rules.
Therefore, when China began its industrial upgrading and climbed toward the higher end of the supply chain, the immediate reaction from the West was resistance and attempts to suppress—trade wars, tech wars, entity lists, all deployed in succession, leaving no stone unturned.
What the West truly fears is not any specific breakthrough in Chinese products, but rather China’s fundamental challenge to the underlying logic of technological monopoly, threatening to dethrone the Western bloc from its position of technological hegemony.
Thus, the anxiety displayed by figures like Schmidt reflects the twilight of an old era: when technology ceases to be the private property of a few nations, the sense of superiority built on monopoly will ultimately be crushed by history.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1869147102163968/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.