Artificial Intelligence thread

[manqiangrexue]

Not justifying them, but for people that far into their careers many of them have obtained a green card or at the very least sunk at least 2 million dollars already into a house. Whatever one's political beliefs, having that much in assets does create a kind of golden handcuffs situation that they would be hesitant to part with even as dire as the situation is getting.

Other things to consider too. Even if they wish to work in Chinese AI in the future, with the release of Sora 2, the USA is still undoubtedly the place to be in AI. So I wouldn't be surprised if many of these engineers, even if they have plans to return to China, figure it'd be beneficial to obtain more expertise in America before doing so.

None of this changes current trends, where with the $100,000 H1-B fee and China's K-visa, talent will begin flowing in one direction from here on out. So as long as China can get its chips up to Nvidia's computing power, the AI sector will eventually catch up and everyone from fresh out of college grads to long time veterans in the US industry will follow suit.

I totally understand that situation. I wanted to return to China but there wasn't demand for the medical genetics skill, especially using American Illumina technology. If I forced it and went anyway, I would probably end up an underpaid work grunt competing with people willing to work 18 hours a day to please the boss pissed off that I'm there at all to steal someone's spot. In America, my life is easy as hell; the competition here sucks. So, now the labor markets say it's just stupid to go.

However, if he had skills that China wanted, then none of that would be an obstacle for him or for me. If China wanted your skills, sell your house for whatever and go; you'll be taken care of. I don't know if that's his situation but it ain't mine unfortunately.

 

[GZDRefugee]

I totally understand that situation. I wanted to return to China but there wasn't demand for the medical genetics skill, especially using American Illumina technology. If I forced it and went anyway, I would probably end up an underpaid work grunt competing with people willing to work 18 hours a day to please the boss pissed off that I'm there at all to steal someone's spot. In America, my life is easy as hell; the competition here sucks. So, now the labor markets say it's just stupid to go.

However, if he had skills that China wanted, then none of that would be an obstacle for him or for me. If China wanted your skills, sell your house for whatever and go; you'll be taken care of. I don't know if that's his situation but it ain't mine unfortunately.

Having a spouse and kids severely affects mobility as well.

 

[manqiangrexue]

Having a spouse and kids severely affects mobility as well.

I was ready to move all of them if only my skills were in demand in China. But China's genetics field is saturated; most American genetics professionals are Chinese. My wife is in economics; she says she can't get hired in China because they'll ask how many kids she has and when she says she has 4 kids under 4 years old, she'll get laughed out the room for even applying. Then, my 4 kids are from surrogates and their passports say born in Kazakhstan. No Chinese elementary school would accept them because surrogacy is politically unacceptable in China. So... what can I do? I really tried my best but forcing a family move to China at this point is basically jumping into the gorilla enclosure and hoping for the best.

The plan is to raise them through high school and then go. Hopefully a skills shuffle will mean that I can be useful. My wife will be employable again with all kids in college, and Chinese colleges don't care about surrogacy, only elementary/middle schools.

 

[lockedemosthenes1]

I was ready to move all of them if only my skills were in demand in China. But China's genetics field is saturated; most American genetics professionals are Chinese. My wife is in economics; she says she can't get hired in China because they'll ask how many kids she has and when she says she has 4 kids under 4 years old, she'll get laughed out the room for even applying. Then, my 4 kids are from surrogates and their passports say born in Kazakhstan. No Chinese elementary school would accept them because surrogacy is politically unacceptable in China. So... what can I do? I really tried my best but forcing a family move to China at this point is basically jumping into the gorilla enclosure and hoping for the best.

The plan is to raise them through high school and then go. Hopefully a skills shuffle will mean that I can be useful. My wife will be employable again with all kids in college, and Chinese colleges don't care about surrogacy, only elementary/middle schools.

Sir, if the comparison of job opportunities between domestic and international markets is as such, does this imply that it is reasonable for many Chinese to seek work abroad or even immigrate? For instance, those Chinese-born artificial intelligence talents who have moved to the United States?

 

[manqiangrexue]

Sir, if the comparison of job opportunities between domestic and international markets is as such, does this imply that it is reasonable for many Chinese to seek work abroad or even immigrate? For instance, those Chinese-born artificial intelligence talents who have moved to the United States?

It's the reality of life. If you are a trained AI talent in China and you can't find a job in China suitable for your skills, you go to another country that offers you such a position rather than work as a delivery boy in China and have your skills rot into obsolescence. But the hope is that if they become a star talent that China wants back, they remember their roots and return.

 

[manqiangrexue]

I wanna add to this. My dream was to become a professional scientist and move to China to raise a beautiful family there and greatly contribute to the fertility rate. I was told in high school that to achieve this dream, I should obtain a PhD in biological sciences because young scientists are in hot demand in China. I set forth to do that and a decade or so later, I succeeded. I was ready to go. But then, I was told that PhDs in biology were now a dime a dozen in China. I needed to specialize and gain work experience to uplift a specific field and then I would be in demand. I chose genetics because Chinese genetics were in their infancy but it was quite a developed field in the US. So I completed my training and became a medical geneticist. I was then told that just having the certificate was not enough; I needed to have work experience as a director of molecular genetics and then transfer from that job to one in China. So I began working as an assistant director. When I applied, they told me that they are looking for seasoned directors who can run labs by themselves rather than reporting to a chief director. So I went to a smaller company and there, I was the only certified medical geneticist. I can now run a genetics testing lab from scratch. So I'm ready now, right? No, now, they told me that there are many such people like me in China with this work experience and they often have no kids or spouses so they are workaholics. I looked around me and saw the dejected returnees, my colleagues who went to China thinking that their American genetics training would put them at an advantage. They went, set up labs, then got out-competed by local Chinese scientists who took over their positions by promotion and then had no choice but to return to the US. And here I am. I tried my best and followed the path but it just wasn't good enough. Not even close; I needed to be a pioneer and innovator in the field and I'm just not there yet. I don't know if I can ever be because so few scientists can ever reach that elite level.

Part of me is sad. I didn't want to deal with my kids being infected with Western culture; I didn't want to be in a mess of a city with gun violence and racism towards our blood. I wanted to be in the embrace of my motherland and away from this filth.

But part of me is happy. The fact that I couldn't catch the Chinese train meant that that train was too fast. China's development was faster than that of a high-schooler who went straight to college, straight to PhD, graduated in 4 years, straight into fellowship, passing the certification exam on the first attempt. I didn't rest or work a different job a single year in between all that. I actually think I'm the youngest person in the US to earn this certification; I don't know that officially but I've been to conferences and met hundreds of colleagues and I've never met anyone younger than I was when I graduated the certification program. I am nowhere near the most brilliant, but I am probably the fastest. And yet, China was still faster. They left me behind but I'm so proud. All I can do now is try to catch up in my professional years and set my kids to catch the train I missed.

 

[lockedemosthenes1]

I’m truly amazed, sir! The progress China has made in medicine is clearly reflected in the rapid growth of its pharmaceutical industry in recent years. But from my limited perspective as an observer, it seems that in areas like artificial intelligence, the gap between China and the U.S. has remained fairly consistent ever since GPT-3.5 came out. Even with recent models like DeepSeek R1 and the soon-to-be-released Qwen3-Max-Thinking, it feels as though we’ve only managed to close that gap by about a month or two.

If I may ask—what do you think might be the reason for this? Does this perhaps suggest that the pace of AI development in China hasn’t quite kept up with the remarkable speed we’ve seen in biomedicine?

I wanna add to this. My dream was to become a professional scientist and move to China to raise a beautiful family there and greatly contribute to the fertility rate. I was told in high school that to achieve this dream, I should obtain a PhD in biological sciences because young scientists are in hot demand in China. I set forth to do that and a decade or so later, I succeeded. I was ready to go. But then, I was told that PhDs in biology were now a dime a dozen in China. I needed to specialize and gain work experience to uplift a specific field and then I would be in demand. I chose genetics because Chinese genetics were in their infancy but it was quite a developed field in the US. So I completed my training and became a medical geneticist. I was then told that just having the certificate was not enough; I needed to have work experience as a director of molecular genetics and then transfer from that job to one in China. So I began working as an assistant director. When I applied, they told me that they are looking for seasoned directors who can run labs by themselves rather than reporting to a chief director. So I went to a smaller company and there, I was the only certified medical geneticist. I can now run a genetics testing lab from scratch. So I'm ready now, right? No, now, they told me that there are many such people like me in China with this work experience and they often have no kids or spouses so they are workaholics. I looked around me and saw the dejected returnees, my colleagues who went to China thinking that their American genetics training would put them at an advantage. They went, set up labs, then got out-competed by local Chinese scientists who took over their positions by promotion and then had no choice but to return to the US. And here I am. I tried my best and followed the path but it just wasn't good enough.

Part of me is sad. I didn't want to deal with my kids being infected with Western culture; I didn't want to be in a mess of a city with gun violence and racism towards our blood. I wanted to be home and away from this filth.

But part of me is happy. The fact that I couldn't catch the Chinese train meant that that train was too fast. China's development was faster than that of a high-schooler who went straight to college, straight to PhD, graduated in 4 years, straight into fellowship, passing the certification exam on the first attempt. I didn't rest or work a different job a single year in between all that. I actually think I'm the youngest person in the US to earn this certification; I don't know that officially but I've been to conferences and met hundreds of colleagues and I've never met anyone younger than I was when I graduated the certification program. I am nowhere near the most brilliant, but I am probably the fastest. And yet, China was still faster. They left me behind but I'm so proud. All I can do now is try to catch up in my professional years and set my kids to catch the train I missed.

 

[manqiangrexue]

I’m truly amazed, sir! The progress China has made in medicine is clearly reflected in the rapid growth of its pharmaceutical industry in recent years. But from my limited perspective as an observer, it seems that in areas like artificial intelligence, the gap between China and the U.S. has remained fairly consistent ever since GPT-3.5 came out. Even with recent models like DeepSeek R1 and the soon-to-be-released Qwen3-Max-Thinking, it feels as though we’ve only managed to close that gap by about a month or two.

If I may ask—what do you think might be the reason for this? Does this perhaps suggest that the pace of AI development in China hasn’t quite kept up with the remarkable speed we’ve seen in biomedicine?

I don't know anything about AI or semiconductors and that is my regret that I didn't decide to study them instead. I am only on those threads to read news about them and cheer for China in my heart. But considering the gap 15, 10, 5 years ago, then the "gap" now, I think the general trend of China moving faster is clear. It's just not going to be clear if you compare every month.