This might sound like a strange phrase, because AI, at least in the form most people now recognise it, has only really been around for a few years. But there is already AI history, and some moments that have been dismissed in one region or country have been fundamental in another.
One example that I think is well worth reading about, especially if you are interested in how China came to view AI, is the AlphaGo tournament, where an AI beat one of the world’s best Go players.
To many of us who had already seen similar things happen with chess, this felt like another incremental step. Computers had been getting better and better, and sooner or later they were going to beat humans at more complex board games. Chess had already had its Deep Blue moment, so AlphaGo could easily be seen as the next stage in the same thing.
But Go is different.
If you watch some of the videos about the match, particularly those that cover Chinese reactions to it, one move stands out: Move 37. In that move, the AI did something that was classed by many observers as almost alien. Mathematically, it was simply finding a logical gap in a progression. It was a move that worked, and there was no real reason why it should not have been played. But up to that point, it looked completely weird and different.
Because this happened within a subject that was culturally important and widely understood, it helped redefine, to a certain extent, how China saw AI. From that point on, AI was taken far more seriously, contributing to the enormous effort and investment that followed.
I will put a link to a video below, but it is well worth watching.