Thanks for that. The "the fate of all mankind" line really throws me. without this line, everything I said above applies. Its existence (assuming that it exists, specificly refers to AI, and Xi really means it) is some evidence towards him thinking that it's important. I guess it just doesn't square with the intuitions I've built for him as someone not particularly bright or sophisiticated. Being convinced by good arguments does not seem to be one of his strong suits.

Edit: forgot to mention that I tried and failed to find the text of the guide itself.

Hmm, apologies if this mostly based on vibes. My read of this is that this is not strong evidence either way. I think that of the excerpt, there are two bits of potentially important info:

• Listing AI alongside biohazards and natural disasters. This means that the CCP does not care about and will not act strongly on any of these risks.
  • Very roughly, CCP documents (maybe those of other govs are similar, idk) contain several types of bits^: central bits (that signal whatever party central is thinking about), performative bits (for historical narrative coherence and to use as talking points), and truism bits (to use as talking points to later provide evidence that they have, indeed, thought about this). One great utility of including these otherwise useless bits is so that the key bits get increasingly hard to identify and parse, ensuring that an expert can correctly identify them. The latter two are not meant to be taken seriously by exprts.
  • My reading is that none of the considerable signalling towards AI (and bio) safety have been seriously intended, that they've been a mixture of performative and truisms.
• The "abondon uninhibited growth that comes at hte cost of sacrificing safety" quote. This sounds like a standard Xi economics/national security talking point*. Two cases:
  • If the study guide itself is not AI-specific, then it seems likely that the quote is about economics. In which case, wow journalism.
  • If the study guide itself is AI-specific, or if the quote is strictly about AI, this is indeed some evidence towards the fact that the only thing they care about is not capabilities. But:
    • We already know this. Our prior on what the CCP considers safety ought to be that the LLM will voice correct (TM) opinions.

    • This seems again like a truism/performative bit.

       

^Not exhaustive or indeed very considered. Probably doesn't totally cleave reality at the joints

*Since Deng, the CCP has had a mission statement of something like "taking economic development as the primary focus". In his third term (or earlier?), Xi had redefined this to something like "taking economic development and national security as dual focii". Coupled with the economic story in the past decade, most people seem to think that this means there will be no economic development.

Old lurker new account! Need to go work soon so very very quick high-level thoughts:

I feel like we feel some of the same frustration at mainstream/western EA, or others alignment speculaters without a deep understanding of China. I can crudely gesture at their wrong inferences sourcing from assumptions orthogonal to the truth, implying fundamental misconceptions in their model, but in the end it comes down to context: much of this is sub-verbal subtle differences that I can succinctly identify without putting in a few months of effort first. Often when I talk to even ABC EAs I want to shout JUST LIVE IN CHINA FOR TWENTY YEARS AND I WON'T NEED TO CONVINCE YOU.

Having said that, I disagree with some of these conclusions: HPMOR is cringe, yes, but also HPMOR is glorious, c'mon. It's polarizing in Chinese, yes, but it's also polarizing in English. Good selector for the target audience. Translating it to build the Alignment field is not exactly zero expected utility but pretty close.

My impression of Chinese EA field-building is that it's basically still severely under-resourced, both funding and talent (esp talent). A team of like 10 people (of various degrees of Chinese background) has been plugging away at it for a few years, but they need much more help. Marginal impact through the roof, for the handful of people that are capable of helping.