US tech dominance isn’t what it used to be

PLUS: Canned trash robots and a donkey meat problem at Amazon.

View in browser  |  Your newsletter preferences By Will Knight | 03.02.23 Hello, and welcome to another edition of Fast Forward.  This week, a timely reminder that there's a lot more to life than just artificial intelligence and that incorrigible fabulist ChatGPT. When it comes to "advanced computing," the US appears to be losing its advantage. Supercomputing slowdown 🖥️📉 Advanced computing harnesses the planet's most powerful computers for things like taming nuclear fusion, tackling climate change, and developing life-changing medical therapies. With everyone so mesmerized by silver-tongued AI chatbots, it's easy to forget that most flashy breakthroughs in science and technology depend on much less glamorous advances in the fundamentals of computing—new algorithms, different computer architectures, and novel silicon chips.    The US has largely dominated these areas of innovation since the early days of computing. But academics who study advances in computer science say in a new report that by many measures, the US lead in advanced computing has declined significantly over the past five years—especially when measured against China. It's well established that America no longer manufactures many of the world's most advanced computer chips—a process that involves carving insanely intricate patterns into silicon with devilishly difficult techniques. Apple and many other companies instead outsource that work to TSMC in Taiwan or Samsung in South Korea. This is why the US government created the CHIPS Act—a $52 billion package aimed at revitalizing domestic chip-making and related technologies.   The report—from MIT; the Council on Competitiveness, a think tank; and Silicon Catalyst, an investment firm—shows that America's share of the world's most powerful supercomputers has also fallen a lot over the past five years. And while the US has traditionally dominated the development of new computer algorithms, some measures of algorithmic innovation—such as the Gordon Bell Prize, awarded to outstanding scientists working on advanced computing—indicate the US has lost its edge to China. The report sums up the overall trend in its pointed title: "America's lead in advanced computing is almost gone." The findings are, in one sense, hardly surprising. China has made big economic advances in recent decades that have boosted its universities and tech industry while also making the country a linchpin of innovation in manufacturing for many US businesses.   But they also hold a message about the future that US policymakers may want to take note of, especially when advances in computing will be crucial to making progress in critical areas like energy, climate science, and medicine due to their ability to model incredibly complex phenomena.    Neil Thompson, an MIT researcher involved with the report, explains that modern AI such as ChatGPT and art-generating algorithms are built upon advances in a particular type of computer chip—the graphics processing unit (GPU). They were originally invented to perform the operations required to render video game graphics, but proved to be well suited to calculations used in an AI technique called deep learning.   Companies have designed and built more advanced versions of GPU chips, lashing thousands of them together with fiber optic interconnects, in order to squeeze more performance out of AI algorithms. Eye-catching advances such as ChatGPT have also essentially come from harnessing existing algorithms to that more powerful hardware.   But as Thompson says, "this isn't the only game in town," and we shouldn't expect that putting more GPUs behind the same algorithms will solve every problem. Big future advances may well depend on inventing different types of algorithms—and different kinds of chips that squeeze more performance out of them, he says.   Thompson and his coauthors say that the US needs to make sure that the CHIPS Act spending reflects the importance of developing novel ideas in advanced computing, as opposed to just propping up existing technologies. In addition to funding new chip-making facilities, they want to see support for the development of new algorithms, new chip designs, and fundamentally new approaches to computing, such as chips that use light rather than electrons or that harness the weird world of quantum physics. The report is also a good reminder of how tricky it is to measure competition between the US and China—and of how the hype around AI can be misleading.   For years, there has been talk of China taking a lead in AI and other areas of technology as measured by the number of patents filed or research papers published. But some entrepreneurs and engineers in China evidently view ChatGPT as a sobering reality check for an industry that prioritizes short-term profits over investment in new ideas and research efforts. They also worry that government policies aimed at curtailing the power of China's largest tech companies may already be chilling Chinese innovation.    But as the new report shows, China may be closer to the US on the fundamentals needed for big breakthroughs than the ChatGPT hoopla makes it seem.  Will Knight, Senior Writer Find me on Twitter @willknight  Need to Know Amazon Has a Donkey Meat Problem The online retailer sells products meant for human consumption that contain donkey meat. A new lawsuit claims that's illegal in California. The Battle for the Soul of Buy Nothing How an idealistic community for exchanging free stuff tried to break away from Facebook, and ended up breaking apart. Face Recognition Software Led to His Arrest. It Was Dead Wrong Alonzo Sawyer's misidentification by algorithm made him a suspect for a crime police now say was committed by someone else—feeding debate over regulation. Alphabet's Layoffs Include Its Cafeteria-Cleaning Robots The company recently laid off thousands of human employees—it is also shutting down a unit working on robots that learned to open doors and clean tables. For all our future-gazing tech coverage, visit WIRED Business. GET WIRED Get WIRED for just $29.99 $5. Includes unlimited access to wired.com plus free stickers! Subscribe now. So, This Happened A fascinating piece about the surprising way AI could help treat some types of mental illness. (The New Yorker)   Terry Sejnowski, a pioneer of neural networks, which are foundational to modern AI, suggests that conversational programs like ChatGPT may serve as a kind of "reverse Turing Test," in that they tell us more about the person talking to the machine than about the machine itself. (The New York Times)   Everyone's favorite polemicist billionaire, Elon Musk, continues his recent right-wing tilt by spinning up a team to build a "less woke" version of ChatGPT. As with many of his endeavors, perhaps it's really more about making money from a potentially valuable new tech. (The Information) US sports arenas are testing out surveillance technologies that may well offer a glimpse of a more dystopian and authoritarian future. (The Atlantic) Until Next Time ChatGPT might fool some people, but we are still a long way from building  machines with anything like the intelligence exhibited by humans. Even so, the lab behind the bot, OpenAI, has decided to lay out its vision for artificial general intelligence (AGI) that will "empower humanity to maximally flourish in the universe." Given that OpenAI pivoted from being a nonprofit and seems focused on raising tens of billions in funding, it's natural to wonder whether the company is really best placed to ensure that AI benefits us all.    Feel free to reply to this email or send me a message on Twitter to let me know what you do and don't like about the newsletter. And in case you missed it, check out Steven Levy's Twitter Spaces on chatbots and a new era of web search.    That's all for now. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.   Have questions or comments? Reply to this email.   This email was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our email address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter preferences   Copyright © Condé Nast 2023. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.