If we knew he was not a sociopath, sadist, or reckless ideologue, I think we could much more safely and effectively push for a slowdown in Western AGI development.
But these analyses do not directly address his moral character (or those of a successor he’d appoint). Does anyone have better sources or guesses? I haven’t devoted enough time researching this to venture an answer; I just want to briefly flag it as an important question.
Xi rules China so thoroughly that he would personally make key decisions regarding AGI. What would he do with an AGI aligned to his intent? It matters, because we probably can’t slow China’s progress toward AGI.
The routes I can see would only slow US progress toward AGI. China would then be either in the running or in a clear lead for transformative AGI. In that scenario (or even in a close race without a pause) the character of Xi Jinping or his successors becomes critical.
We know his history, but he guards his opinions closely. I haven’t found time to do the deep dive. We know he’s done some pretty harsh things, but he defends those as breaking eggs to make omelettes (as most politicians have). Is he the sort of person who would use vast power to make the world miserable (or dead in an AGI race or nuclear showdown)?
We have reason to think he takes AGI risk seriously, but we don’t know what he’d do with it, or the opportunity to get it first.
So, does anyone know of good work addressing his character and personal beliefs? Or is this an interesting research topic for anyone?
Xi’s character seems important under a variety of scenarios. Here’s some additional logic for why I think this might be particularly critical in my loosely projected likeliest path to survival.
I currently see convincing the entire world not to pursue AGI as near-impossible (this is a separate question, obviously). Slowing Western democratic progress toward AGI through government action seems merely difficult and unlikely. But it would hand the opportunity for first to AGI to Xi and China. What would they do with that opportunity?
If Xi is a reasonably sane person, I think we might get a very good outcome from China being first or a near second in that race. The Chinese government seems (naively) much more inclined to caution than either the US government or entrepreneurs, and might be expected to do a better job with alignment. If we achieve aligned AGI, the pie gets very large and most competitive motivations can be mitigated by sharing that wealth—if the actors are sane enough to avoid paranoiacally competing.
Based on my current guesses, I’d rather see the US and China tied for the lead than a more open race. If enough people have access to AGI, someone will misuse it, and they might have a dramatic first-mover advantage that would encourage aggression. See If we solve alignment, do we die anyway? and the resulting discussion. I think the US and China might be first by a good margin. They could collaborate to limit AGI proliferation, while sharing the fruits of technologies developed by intent-aligned AGI.
That’s if both countries are under basically sane and sensible leadership. Both are in question, because of the volatility of US politics, and our lack of insight into the character of Xi Jinping.
If I understand correctly, you’re trying to figure out what Xi would do with the unlimited power offered by an intent-aligned ASI, or how he would react to the prospect of such, etc.
Xi’s character might matter, but I am impressed by the claim here that a competent Chinese ruler will be guided first by notions of good statecraft, with any details of personality or private life to be kept apart from their decisions and public actions.
I’m sure that Chinese political history also offers many examples of big personalities and passionate leaders, but that would be more relevant to times when the political order is radically in flux, or needs to be rebuilt from nothing. Xi came to power within a stable system.
So you might want to also ask how the Chinese system and ideology would respond to the idea of superintelligent AI—that is, if they are even capable of dealing with the concept! There must be considerable probability that the system would simply tune out such threatening ideas, in favor of tamer notions of AI—we already see this filtering at work in the West.
I suppose one possibility is that they would view AI, properly employed, as a way to realize the communist ideal for real. Communist countries always say that communism is a distant goal, for now we’re building socialism, and even this socialism looks a lot like capitalism these days. And one may say that the powerbrokers in such societies have long since specialized in wielding power under conditions of one-party capitalism and mercantile competition, rather than the early ideal of revolutionary leveling for the whole world. Nonetheless, the old ideal is there, just as the religious ideals still exert a cultural influence in nominally secular societies descended from a religious civilization.
When I think about Chinese ASI, the other thing I think about, is their online fantasy novels, because that’s the place in Chinese culture where they deal with scenarios like a race to achieve power over the universe. They may be about competition to acquire the magical legacy of a vanished race of immortals, rather than competition to devise the perfect problem-solving algorithm, but this is where you can find a Chinese literature that explores the politics and psychology of such a competition, all the way down to the interaction between the private and public lives of the protagonists.
If we knew he was not a sociopath, sadist, or reckless ideologue,
He is also old, which means you must also ask about his age related cognitive and personality change. There were rumours that during covid he had become scared and rigid.
Personally, I think we need to focus not on his character but on 1) how much he cares, as this will decide how much he delegates 2) how much he understands, as we all risk death, but many do not understand or agree with this 3) how competent he currently is to execute his goals.
Xi rules China so thoroughly that he would personally make key decisions regarding AGI
Even if he had absolute power, it doesn’t mean he won’t delegate. After all, his time is limited.
So, does anyone know of good work addressing his character and personal beliefs? Or is this an interesting research topic for anyone?
This is hard to find the truth here because we have state level information warfare obscuring the truth. That means there is propaganda designed to deceive and obscure even a professional analyst with access to secret information. However we do have some state level analysis, available through WikiLeaks we can look at what the US diplomats think, in the leaked diplomatic cables ( alsoand )
(C) According to a well connected Embassy contact, Politburo Standing Committee Member and Vice President Xi Jinping is “exceptionally ambitious,” confident and focused, and has had his “eye on the prize” from early adulthood.
PolOff’s contact (“the professor”) and Xi Jinping were both born in 1953 and grew up in similar circumstances. … The professor did not know Xi personally until they had both reached their late teens,
(C) In the professor’s view, Xi Jinping is supremely pragmatic, a realist, driven not by ideology but by a combination of ambition and “self-protection.” The professor saw Xi’s early calculations to carefully lay out a realistic career path as an illustration of his pragmatism.
(C) Xi is a true “elitist” at heart,
I don’t know how reliable these cables are, but they represent an interesting source.
The things you mention are all important too, but I think we have better guesses on all of those.
Xi is widely considered to be highly intelligent. We also have reason to believe he understands why AGI could be a real x-risk (I don’t remember the link for “is Xi Jinping a doomer?” or similar).
That’s enough to guess that he understands (or will soon enough).
I’d be shocked if he just didn’t care about the future of humanity. Getting to control that would tempt most people, let alone those who seek power. I’d be shocked if he (or anyone) delegated decisions on AGI if they remotely understood their possible consequences (although you’d certainly delegate people to help think about them. That could be important if he was stupid or malleable, which Xi is not—unless he becomes senile or paranoiac, which he might).
The Wikileaks information parallels the informed speculation I’ve found on his character. None of that really helps much to establish whether he’s sociopathic, sadistic, or risk-taking enough to doom us all.
(I tend to think that 99% of humanity is probably sane and empathetic enough to get good results from an intent-aligned AGI (since it can help them think about the issue), but it’s hard to know since nobody has ever been in that position, ever.)
Who is Xi Jinping as a person and moral actor?
If we knew he was not a sociopath, sadist, or reckless ideologue, I think we could much more safely and effectively push for a slowdown in Western AGI development.
Analysts have described him as “rational, ruthless, and resilient” and “pragmatic” and as Dominant, Conscientious, Ambitious, Accommodating/cooperative and Dauntless/adventurous (risk-taking), in that order (according to a personality index I’m not familiar with).
But these analyses do not directly address his moral character (or those of a successor he’d appoint). Does anyone have better sources or guesses? I haven’t devoted enough time researching this to venture an answer; I just want to briefly flag it as an important question.
Xi rules China so thoroughly that he would personally make key decisions regarding AGI. What would he do with an AGI aligned to his intent? It matters, because we probably can’t slow China’s progress toward AGI.
The routes I can see would only slow US progress toward AGI. China would then be either in the running or in a clear lead for transformative AGI. In that scenario (or even in a close race without a pause) the character of Xi Jinping or his successors becomes critical.
We know his history, but he guards his opinions closely. I haven’t found time to do the deep dive. We know he’s done some pretty harsh things, but he defends those as breaking eggs to make omelettes (as most politicians have). Is he the sort of person who would use vast power to make the world miserable (or dead in an AGI race or nuclear showdown)?
We have reason to think he takes AGI risk seriously, but we don’t know what he’d do with it, or the opportunity to get it first.
So, does anyone know of good work addressing his character and personal beliefs? Or is this an interesting research topic for anyone?
Xi’s character seems important under a variety of scenarios. Here’s some additional logic for why I think this might be particularly critical in my loosely projected likeliest path to survival.
I currently see convincing the entire world not to pursue AGI as near-impossible (this is a separate question, obviously). Slowing Western democratic progress toward AGI through government action seems merely difficult and unlikely. But it would hand the opportunity for first to AGI to Xi and China. What would they do with that opportunity?
If Xi is a reasonably sane person, I think we might get a very good outcome from China being first or a near second in that race. The Chinese government seems (naively) much more inclined to caution than either the US government or entrepreneurs, and might be expected to do a better job with alignment. If we achieve aligned AGI, the pie gets very large and most competitive motivations can be mitigated by sharing that wealth—if the actors are sane enough to avoid paranoiacally competing.
Based on my current guesses, I’d rather see the US and China tied for the lead than a more open race. If enough people have access to AGI, someone will misuse it, and they might have a dramatic first-mover advantage that would encourage aggression. See If we solve alignment, do we die anyway? and the resulting discussion. I think the US and China might be first by a good margin. They could collaborate to limit AGI proliferation, while sharing the fruits of technologies developed by intent-aligned AGI.
That’s if both countries are under basically sane and sensible leadership. Both are in question, because of the volatility of US politics, and our lack of insight into the character of Xi Jinping.
If I understand correctly, you’re trying to figure out what Xi would do with the unlimited power offered by an intent-aligned ASI, or how he would react to the prospect of such, etc.
Xi’s character might matter, but I am impressed by the claim here that a competent Chinese ruler will be guided first by notions of good statecraft, with any details of personality or private life to be kept apart from their decisions and public actions.
I’m sure that Chinese political history also offers many examples of big personalities and passionate leaders, but that would be more relevant to times when the political order is radically in flux, or needs to be rebuilt from nothing. Xi came to power within a stable system.
So you might want to also ask how the Chinese system and ideology would respond to the idea of superintelligent AI—that is, if they are even capable of dealing with the concept! There must be considerable probability that the system would simply tune out such threatening ideas, in favor of tamer notions of AI—we already see this filtering at work in the West.
I suppose one possibility is that they would view AI, properly employed, as a way to realize the communist ideal for real. Communist countries always say that communism is a distant goal, for now we’re building socialism, and even this socialism looks a lot like capitalism these days. And one may say that the powerbrokers in such societies have long since specialized in wielding power under conditions of one-party capitalism and mercantile competition, rather than the early ideal of revolutionary leveling for the whole world. Nonetheless, the old ideal is there, just as the religious ideals still exert a cultural influence in nominally secular societies descended from a religious civilization.
When I think about Chinese ASI, the other thing I think about, is their online fantasy novels, because that’s the place in Chinese culture where they deal with scenarios like a race to achieve power over the universe. They may be about competition to acquire the magical legacy of a vanished race of immortals, rather than competition to devise the perfect problem-solving algorithm, but this is where you can find a Chinese literature that explores the politics and psychology of such a competition, all the way down to the interaction between the private and public lives of the protagonists.
He is also old, which means you must also ask about his age related cognitive and personality change. There were rumours that during covid he had become scared and rigid.
Personally, I think we need to focus not on his character but on 1) how much he cares, as this will decide how much he delegates 2) how much he understands, as we all risk death, but many do not understand or agree with this 3) how competent he currently is to execute his goals.
Even if he had absolute power, it doesn’t mean he won’t delegate. After all, his time is limited.
This is hard to find the truth here because we have state level information warfare obscuring the truth. That means there is propaganda designed to deceive and obscure even a professional analyst with access to secret information. However we do have some state level analysis, available through WikiLeaks we can look at what the US diplomats think, in the leaked diplomatic cables ( also and )
I don’t know how reliable these cables are, but they represent an interesting source.
The things you mention are all important too, but I think we have better guesses on all of those.
Xi is widely considered to be highly intelligent. We also have reason to believe he understands why AGI could be a real x-risk (I don’t remember the link for “is Xi Jinping a doomer?” or similar).
That’s enough to guess that he understands (or will soon enough).
I’d be shocked if he just didn’t care about the future of humanity. Getting to control that would tempt most people, let alone those who seek power. I’d be shocked if he (or anyone) delegated decisions on AGI if they remotely understood their possible consequences (although you’d certainly delegate people to help think about them. That could be important if he was stupid or malleable, which Xi is not—unless he becomes senile or paranoiac, which he might).
The Wikileaks information parallels the informed speculation I’ve found on his character. None of that really helps much to establish whether he’s sociopathic, sadistic, or risk-taking enough to doom us all.
(I tend to think that 99% of humanity is probably sane and empathetic enough to get good results from an intent-aligned AGI (since it can help them think about the issue), but it’s hard to know since nobody has ever been in that position, ever.)