Report: China Beating US in Artificial Intelligence Arms Race

Growing investment and greater access to data about people is giving China the edge in the race to develop artificial intelligence, according to news reports Thursday. "The Chinese government's thoughtful investment in AI is a huge accelerator," Andrew Ng, a former Google executive who now runs an AI start-up company, told The Wall Street Journal. Western concerns about privacy and "the ethics of letting machines make important decisions" have led to new policies over collecting personal data and deploying AI, the Journal reports. "Ultimately, AI advances are inextricably founded on the broad use of data to train machines as they go about learning," said Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer. "The question is whether privacy laws will constrict AI development or use in some parts of the world," he added.