Race to develop artificial intelligence is one between Chinese authoritarianism and U.S. democracy

"In two years, China will be ahead of the United States in AI (artificial intelligence)," states Denis Barrier, CEO of global venture firm Cathay Innovation. If so, China will largely determine how this technology transforms the world. Today's contest is more than a race for dominance in a new technology -- it's one between authoritarianism and democracy. "AI is the world's next big inflection point," says Ajeet Singh, CEO of ThoughtSpot in Palo Alto. Artificial intelligence is machine learning, which self-learns programmed tasks, using data, and the more it gets, the more learned it becomes.