AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

by Kai-Fu Lee

Right now, medical knowledge—and thus the power to deliver accurate diagnoses—is pretty much kept bottled up within a small number of very talented humans, people with imperfect memories and limited time to keep up with new advances in the field. Sure, a vast wealth of medical information is scattered across the internet but not in a way that is navigable by most people. First-rate medical diagnosis is still heavily rationed based on geography and, quite candidly, one’s ability to pay. This is especially stark in China, where well-trained doctors all cluster in the wealthiest cities. Travel outside of Beijing and Shanghai, and you’re likely to see a dramatic drop in the medical knowledge of doctors treating your illness. The result? Patients from all around the country try to cram into the major hospitals, lining up for days and straining limited resources to the breaking point. Second-wave AI promises to change all of this. Underneath the many social elements of visiting a doctor, the crux of diagnosis involves collecting data (symptoms, medical history, environmental factors) and predicting the phenomena correlated with them (an illness). This act of seeking out various correlations and making predictions is exactly what deep learning excels at. Given enough training data—in this case, precise medical records—an AI-powered diagnostic tool could turn any medical professional into a super-diagnostician, a doctor with experience in tens of millions of cases, an uncanny abil...