a post by Kai-Fu Lee for the MIT Technology Review
No matter what anyone tells you, we’re not ready for the massive societal upheavals on the way.
I took an Uber to an artificial-intelligence conference at MIT one recent morning, and the driver asked me how long it would take for autonomous vehicles to take away his job. I told him it would happen in about 15 to 20 years. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I’ll be retired by then,” he said.
Good thing we weren’t in China. If a driver there had asked, I would have had to tell him he’d lose his job in about 10 years – maybe 15 if he was lucky.
That might sound surprising, given that the US is, and has been, in the lead in AI research. But China is catching up – if it hasn’t already – and that rivalry, with one nation playing off the other, guarantees that AI is coming.
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Showing posts with label Chinese_economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese_economy. Show all posts
Sunday, 4 March 2018
Thursday, 9 February 2012
China’s Internet lexicon: Symbolic meaning and commoditization of Grass Mud Horse in the harmonious society
an article by Shaojung Sharon Wang (Institute of Communications Management, National Sun Yat–sen University, Taiwan) published in First Monday Volume 17 Number 1 (January 2012)
Abstract
There is a long history of the Chinese concept of internet regulation, which emphasizes stability and unity for a harmonious society and strong technical control. “Grass Mud Horse” (草泥马), a vulgar expression similar to an obscene curse word, has, since early 2009, been used by the country’s internet users as a political parody in response to their government’s campaign of building a harmonious socialist society. “Grass Mud Horse” has later been fashioned into the name of a storybook character, and has spawned music videos and faux documentaries. Its themed merchandise, such as plush toys, is being sold over the internet.
This study sets out to examine the transformation of “Grass Mud Horse” into the mass production of cultural goods created and disseminated through the internet. It argues that the exchange values of “Grass Mud Horse” represent the equivalent relation between commodities, symbols, and popular culture. While “Grass Mud Horse” has been commoditised by the increasing usage of popular culture; this is also the system of mass production and the homogenising régime of capital, which produces mass desires, tastes, and behaviour rather than valid social movements.
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Abstract
There is a long history of the Chinese concept of internet regulation, which emphasizes stability and unity for a harmonious society and strong technical control. “Grass Mud Horse” (草泥马), a vulgar expression similar to an obscene curse word, has, since early 2009, been used by the country’s internet users as a political parody in response to their government’s campaign of building a harmonious socialist society. “Grass Mud Horse” has later been fashioned into the name of a storybook character, and has spawned music videos and faux documentaries. Its themed merchandise, such as plush toys, is being sold over the internet.
This study sets out to examine the transformation of “Grass Mud Horse” into the mass production of cultural goods created and disseminated through the internet. It argues that the exchange values of “Grass Mud Horse” represent the equivalent relation between commodities, symbols, and popular culture. While “Grass Mud Horse” has been commoditised by the increasing usage of popular culture; this is also the system of mass production and the homogenising régime of capital, which produces mass desires, tastes, and behaviour rather than valid social movements.
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