Although not explicitly what the report is focussed on, this resurfaces my, perhaps mislead, hope that AI will be the field to prove that the Chinese style of eduation will prove unfruitful. As someone attempting to work in this field right now I intepret it as something that although on the surface is highly mathematical/statistical at its base still rests on critical thinking and creativity.
The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompatible with the authoritarian system currently in place in China. Maybe I'm naive and romantic about the Canadian/Western style of education and China will inevitablly dominate AI through force of will. However, my personal experience working with it, and experimenting with improvement in my own small corner of applied science tells me otherwise.
Would be very curious to hear others thoughts on this, perhaps from people further along than I (still a lowly undergrad).
Edit: I don't want my comment on math to imply that there is no creativity within mathematics. I've gone through too many heavy math courses to believe that. I'm instead trying to say that there is a place, even beyond mathematics, for creativity and intuition, where you don't need the mathematical understanding to build something novel.
The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompatible with the authoritarian system currently in place in China. Maybe I'm naive and romantic about the Canadian/Western style of education and China will inevitablly dominate AI through force of will. However, my personal experience working with it, and experimenting with improvement in my own small corner of applied science tells me otherwise.
Would be very curious to hear others thoughts on this, perhaps from people further along than I (still a lowly undergrad).
Edit: I don't want my comment on math to imply that there is no creativity within mathematics. I've gone through too many heavy math courses to believe that. I'm instead trying to say that there is a place, even beyond mathematics, for creativity and intuition, where you don't need the mathematical understanding to build something novel.