Spyke
SkyezOpenreply
lemmy.world

The last good year. Truly they are the most intellectually advanced society.

74
Psythikreply
lemm.ee

And they're a bunch of xenophobic racists.

11
shawn1122reply
lemm.ee

Thought you were talking about America's elected government for a second there.

2
PacManreply
sh.itjust.works

Social Media didn’t exist yet was all user groups, mailing list, irc, and AOL chat rooms. Would be another 4-5 years before they came onto the scene as we know it today

3
lemmy.ca

The US isn't innovating jack shit.

The US just created a massively polarized and unequal society so that when a country creates a new brilliant researcher or innovation, an American company can buy them out.

Basically, the insane poverty and lack of government services that the average American experiences gives them enough cash to buy up innovative people, companies, and competitors.

148

Also the post-WW2 world order heavily favours their economy.

Their allies buy their debt, and their weapons. They give access to theiir markets to US companies, and support US wars around the world. They invest in the US economy in an unbalanced way that favours the US economy.

And all of this was in exchange for US security.

43

Innovate people, companies, and competitors

And quickly turn them complacent. I work at a Japanese company, and the amount of times I see an amazing Japanese expat turn into a busybody is insane. We have crafted the perfect "fuck your idea just do your job" culture

13

No, we just don't mislabel foreign brain drain as American exceptionalism.

8

If AI is the chief innovation in the US, then the US is massively fucked.

I'd much rather have a fancy shinkansen.

101
weker01reply
sh.itjust.works

You seem to be implying an argument based on Modus tollens:

  1. If AI is the chief US innovation, then the US is massively fucked.
  2. The US is not massively fucked.
  3. Ergo, AI is not the chief US innovation.

Well I disagree with the premise 2:

The US is massively fucked.

With that, no conclusion can be gained from premise 1.

4

No, AI is one of the chief innovations which is a huge money maker. Don't forget the US still dominates the enterprise server market which is worth trillions. Processors and GPUs are still designed and some manufactured here. Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes, AI is just the latest buzz.

-5
indexreply
sh.itjust.works

llms and image generators alone are a tech that will change the world

-5

They will and are changing it, to be sure. Whether those changes are positive remains to be seen.

8
lemmy.ca

Economics Explained has an interesting video on the topic. After WWII, Japan became the first country in Asia to undergo an industrial revolution and soon became the second largest economy after the US and was by many accounts set to match or even overtake the US. They then suffered an economic collapse due to unchecked growth and speculative markets and decided to never again speculate on the future and just stick to tried and true methods.

Since the 1990s, Japan's economy has barely changed while other nations have seen huge growth. You'd assume that would mean Japan is now far behind, but they aren't. They seem to have mastered keeping everything the same for decades without the normal decline that comes with it.

91

And that, actually, is a great thing. You don't want explosive growth, you want stability. This is a lesson the US is learning right now

31

After WWII, Japan became the first country in Asia to undergo an industrial revolution

After WW2? Industrialization during the 20s/30s was the whole reason they attempted to conqueror the Oceanic island states and the Chinese/Korean/Indochinese mainland.

They then suffered an economic collapse due to unchecked growth and speculative markets and decided to never again speculate on the future and just stick to tried and true methods.

The Japanese Economy was undone by The Plaza Accord and The Louvre Accord, which western nations used to devalue their currency and undermine Japanese export prices. The downturn, followed by a financialized corporate consolidation and expropriation of revenues through foreign investment, permanently crippled the Japanese economy in the aftermath of the 90s Asian recession.

What sets countries like Japan, Korea, and the Philippines apart from China is the domestic control of their industries. Their markets are dominated by private equity and fixated on steady profit margins rather than long term public investments. Consequently, the capital cities are flooded with cash and industrial development while the rural areas are devoid of commerce. There's no shortage of speculation, but its rooted in the private equity markets and focused largely on fictitious capital - debt instruments and their derivatives - rather than real capital or technology.

Chinese investment in the periphery and its rising tide of middle class wage earners is what propels them into the 21st century. They're the ones building out new transit lines, new public housing projects, new universities, and blue sky research. The Xi Government is openly hostile to speculative investment, doesn't bother to bail out failing financial institutions, and focuses primarily on expansion of utilities, trade corridors, and mixed us developments.

23
lemmy.world

No, they're absolutely not. Their GDP will majorly decline, but their QOL will stay the same or even improve and their GDP per capita also won't see much change.

Birtherism is bullshit.

11
Shardreply
lemmy.world

I'm interested to know how you believe the elderly will be cared for? Let's assume for a moment they have no issues financially supporting the elderly, but physically who is supposed to care for them? Who will make up the nurses, doctors and caretakers now that their population pyramid looks like a chicken drumstick?

1

Japan has a large amount of unused labor in the current demographic breakup of 29% elderly, Japan has a large number of educated inviduals, and Japan has a large amount of capital even without infinite growth shenanigans.

Any failure to take care elderly even at 38% or even 50% would be a failure of the state as a result of greed or corruption. It's a relatively simple task to accomplish. The year is 2025, automation replaced most other jobs a long long time ago.

0
lemmy.world

The services' costs are dependent on the number of recipients. They're already in the slump of elderly being a drain on the system, it can only get better not worse.

The only concern of the population decline that I can see is the decrease in funding available for Military Expenses.

And, if things get really bad, all they have to do is open up for immigration and able bodied workers will magically appear.

5
lemmy.world

If Generation A has a higher number of people than Generation B then when Generation A dies off there will be a lower number of elderly. It's a temporary slump. It might last a decade or more, but it is temporary.

According to your source the Percentage of people aged over 65 peaks in 2042 or 2043 at about 38% if the government does nothing, compared to the 29.6% currently.

Right now a lot of skilled workers are fleeing to the EU, so Japan could totally capitalize on that. Or it can just educate its population to be skilled labor and give all the low skilled labor (if that even exists) to immigrants. Immigrants work hard for lower wages and are less prone to crime, there is no good faith argument against that.

2
tetris11reply
lemmy.ml

They'll survive it, their markets and investments aren't overvalued like ours are. They'll crash, re-evaluate their societal priorities, and start to build again

11
tetris11reply
lemmy.ml

I mean every society has to rebuild after a crash, I'm just optimistic that they'll do it faster

10
tetris11reply
lemmy.ml

Got a summary? I know the onus is on me, but I'm not likely to dig much further

5
Caitreply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

That'd require significant societal change to an environment where having children is actually manageable

8
prolereply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

Honestly, sounds great to me. I know they've had "issues" (is it really an issue for me if my money becomes more valuable?) with deflation, but I'd be OK with that if it meant no more speculation.

10

I spend at least a month in Japan every year and the tech there is great for the most part. All of the critical parts infrastructure tech is brilliant and incredibly stable.

The lack of risk taking is very noticeable though especially when it comes to contemporary software and UX. There just so much broken tech because everything moves so slowly - for example to pick up a reserved train tickets you need to bring the same physical card you made you payment with and thats the only way. So if you used a virtual card or forgot your card at home you're screwed.

4
lemm.ee

The idea that Japan was ever more technologically advanced than the US is a tough argument to make. Perhaps they had better consumer and transportation technologies, but the US led the world in nearly all other forms of technology (see silicon valley, NASA, US defense technology, etc). It's cool the hate on the US but there's a reason it was the world super power for decades. It's too bad it's turning into an anti-science christo-facist kelptocracy.

58
shikitohnoreply
lemm.ee

I think it's mostly that they did way better than the US in terms of making many consumer technology products widely available at a higher quality and better cost than the US did. Like, Japanese brands were huge for televisions, audio equipment and similar goods. I can think of several that were the go to brands for TVs when I was growing up, but I can't think of a single US-based manufacturer, even a crappy one.

They also did way better in terms of building out internet access and public transport than the US has done.

It might only be within a few limited sectors, but when those sectors account for the vast majority of peoples' interactions with technology, it's going to have a far greater impact on their perceptions of relative advancement.

Also, in the pre-internet days, it probably helped that non-Japanese people largely didn't see all the ways that Japan can be an extremely conservative country, like their reliance on fax machines long after pretty much every other country with the means to do so had almost entirely left them behind as obsolete.

24
A7thStonereply
lemmy.world

RCA, Westinghouse, and Zenith used to be big American TV manufacturers. Westinghouse and zenith were the cheaper brands, but RCA used to make some high end models.

5

I mean, I know there had to have been some, but 2/3 of those are out of business and weren't competitive with their Japanese rivals, while Zenith's most recent "notable product" on Wikipedia dates from the 1970s and has been a subsidiary of a Korean company for nearly 30 years.

5

You go back far enough and you'll find every country did horrible things or stolelands or killed half their citizens etc.

4

Eh, they seemed to have better access to new tech like phones, though most of that seems to have shifted to Korea these days.

5

The tech for silicon valley comes from Asia. You literally couldn't build a chip factory in the US right now, the know-how doesn't exist there anymore.
So the US is leading the world in writing code and building long tubes spewing hot gas out of one end.

3
pyrereply
lemmy.world

to be fair it's always been a kleptocracy. literally founded on stolen land, with stolen labor. even after emancipation it kept the stolen labor tradition alive til now with increasing intensity.

2
lemm.ee

honestly youd be pretty hard pressed to find a country now that wasnt previously stolen

5

Sure but the scale and recency of European colonialism certainly leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths, even the descendants of colonists.

Many are also put off by European and its new world colony's claims of moral supremacy over those victimized by colonization, especially as it was the birthplace of nazi-ism and countless genocides.

We can all agree thar humans have been nafarious for a long time. But, many see the legacy of European colonialism and the Trans Atlantic slave trade as an atrocity at a scale never before commited in human history.

2

different degrees, but yeah pretty much all land has been taken by force. still is. the difference is how though.

1

It’s cool the hate on the US but there’s a reason it was the world super power for decades.

The military industrial complex?

1
lemm.ee

They have no groundbreaking AI software

Neither does the US

57

Same thing that happens everywhere. Low cost innovation gets expensive as companies grow and salaries rise, profit seekers move to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere.

55
sh.itjust.works

That still hasn't happened in the US though. Hardware is produced overseas but a huge chunk of the most used software in the world is produced in the US. The chips are designed in the US, some produced here but most overseas. Does that only apply to manufacturing?

2
lemmy.world

Still hasn’t happened in the US? You choose a single industry as an indicator to base a claim on the state of US industry vs vast manufacturing losses the US has faced over the last 50 years?

11

Whatever. If it's Linux, Democrat, anti establishment, and anti US then it's popular on Lemmy, got it. Lemmy feels more and more like it's just a big group of edgy teenagers.

-3
lemmy.today

I had some use of it. It is really good at summing and organizing a bunch of text.

13
lemmy.zip

Yes AI has good uses, it made my job faster, I can now focus on more important things because I'm not wasting time with bullshit that AI can do in a seccond.

But you can't say that on Lemmy, here it's all useless, a scam and gave my dog AIDS.

9
uranibabareply
lemmy.world

A lot of people here on Lemmy keeps saying that AI is bad because it failed one task it wasn’t built for. Or because it can’t do everything. I don’t get it.

6
lemmy.world

maybe go for a "its bad because of the return on investment" angle? for the amount of literal billions we have thrown at it, perhaps its ok to expect more. if you gave me a mere couple of billion, i'd make healthy lunches for school kids to foster education and health outcomes (2-4-1!)

8

How many billions (in today's money) were spent on going to the moon? What about the billions poured into refining the internal combustion engine? The billions that have gone into making and running massive particle accelerators?

Technology is constantly advancing and we often don't know where it'll take us until we get there.

3

I haven't spent billions on it, so it is not a bad ROI for me. Perhaps it is for those who has invested in creating OpenAI, LLama etc, I am not one of them.

Spending the same amount of money to create a better world would be ideal. But if the money was not spent on AI development does not mean that it would be spent on anything better. That is also a discussion about the money spent on AI and if it has been worth it (a discussion very much wroth having), it does not diminish the usefulness of AIs.

1
taladarreply
sh.itjust.works

Name one category of tasks that you would feel confident it can perform with at least a 90% success rate.

1

Translating text. I recently had to translate a bunch of architectural requirements into english. I honestly don't know if deepl.com uses GenAI or what. But the job was pretty much copy and paste. Occasionally I had to change a word because the connotation was a bit off, and a few times it got confused with tangled, run-in input and I had to rephrase whole sentences. I'm a native speaker in both languages and I estimate it would have taken me at least three times as long.

1

Improve text that I have written. With improve I mean change the text accodring to the specifications in the prompt provided to the AI.

Here are a few more:

  • Since ChatGPT has parsed most of the puplic internet, it can be useful when trying to find information about something that is very obscure - (for example settings for an old or not as used software), where my ordinary searches has failed me.
  • In addition to the previous one, it can be good way to find better search terms.
  • Write repeated text with slight variations that I could do myself but an AI can do instantly.
  • Translate and XSD (XML specification) into another structure (for example classes when writing code).
  • Create macros for World of Warcraft.
  • Explain errors outputed buy some software (ties into the first two).

I am sure there are other usecases that I could not think of.

Is the money, time and energy spent to create a tool that can do this worth it? That is perhaps the question want to ask and perhaps your answer is no.

0

So good in fact that apple spawned a whole new category of memes making fun of how badly that works.

5

I use AI almost daily as a software engineer. I like it because I'm training to jump into infosec, and the job market is going to be amazing as all this exploitable AI code keeps hitting prod.

2
lemmy.today

Sadly Japan may be a culture in decline.
Their culture is basically work yourself to the bone even more than the US. Young people study their ass off and get a job working long hours while still living at home because they still can't afford their own place. And you have stuff like if the subway is a minute late they hand out apology slips to workers so they don't get in trouble with their bosses for being 30 seconds late. Meanwhile there is a very strong 'defer to elder authority' note in their culture. And in many industries people are expected to work a 10-hour day and then go drinking with the bus until 2:00 a.m. only to be back at work the next day at 8:00 a.m.
The end result is young people have neither the time nor the money to have kids. So they don't.

Their population is literally aging and shrinking. They are facing a very serious problem in wondering who is going to take care of their elderly. Their birth to death ratio is 0.44, meaning that for every baby born in a year more than two people die. In a nation of about 125 million, the population is shrinking by just under a million every year. That's not good.

And while the Japanese people are highly educated and very capable, the 'defer to authority' culture prevents the sort of entrepreneurship you see in the US. An example of this, Japanese companies have a stamp called the hanko, when a paper memo is circulated around the office each employee stamps it with their personal hanko stamp to signify that they have read it. Many Japanese companies stayed in person during COVID simply because there was no digital equivalent to the hanko and managers refused to give it up.

If you wants an example, look at Toyota Motors. It's been obvious to everyone with eyes that electric vehicles are the future, and it has been obvious for probably 8 or 10 years. Every major automaker is investing in EV technology. Except Toyota, which up until recently was still betting the farm on hybrids and hydrogen. But that's because the good Mr Toyoda didn't like EVs, and unlike in an American company no one would dare challenge him on that.

It is really too bad. Japan is a wonderful place with an amazing culture and rich history. But if they are going to survive they need to make very serious changes to their society and they need to do it soon. That is going to involve dumping most of what currently qualifies as Japanese business culture, an instituting some real work-life balance laws with teeth. I don't know if they're going to do it.

49
db0reply
lemmy.dbzer0.com

The most fascinating thing about their extreme "defer to authority" attitute, is the appearance of the "angry american" phenomenon, which is just a japanese-speaking white dude employee, which is literally there to voice the staff grievances and suggestions to the boss, without anyone japanese having to lose face. Literally the reinvention of the court jester in modern times!

23

Wait, they got a job where you're supposed to be professionally angry?

I gotta go to Japan asap.

2
ryathalreply
sh.itjust.works

This is a good summary, but I think it misses another big point. The country is super racist. They don't allow enough immigration to offset demographic issues. They also don't get any other benefits of immigration like cultural changes that could actually help companies be more adaptable, or maybe trying something different than the exact same thing for 100 years is a good idea.

14
indexreply
sh.itjust.works

Sound like they have to drop capitalism like everyone else

2

The problem isn't capitalism. US has always had capitalism and once we put good protections in it worked great, like post WWII up until like 1990ish. That golden arrow was mainly because there were strong protections for workers that were relevant to the time. A man working minimum wage could live decently and feed his family.

The three factors of production are land, labor, and capital. All three are supposed to have equal seats at the table. But starting somewhere between the Reagan years and 1990s, we started to let capital run the table. Labor took a back seat. And what we have now is the result.

Housing and health care became investments rather than services. Minimum wage didn't track inflation, didn't track CPI, and sure as hell didn't track worker productivity. The federal minimum wage has less buying power today than at any point since the minimum wage was implemented. And there is a very real trickle down effect, in that if the lowest worker is making $7.25, all other wages adjust based on that. IE, the slightly higher end worker makes $15 or $20 because that's double or triple the minimum wage. If the lowest worker was making $20, the slightly higher end worker would be making $40 or $60.

The result is that the American people have less buying power at their disposal than they have in a very long time. Significantly less than during those golden years of the latter 1900s. And that is why shit sucks.

Capitalism is not the problem. Unchecked unregulated capitalism is the problem. Regulatory capture is part of that problem. And that's what we have now in many industries.

Fix that, raise the minimum wage, and stop letting corporations exploit not just workers but the nation as a whole. Then you have some capitalism that works for everybody.

1
lemmy.world

dude had already swallowed the tech bs, thinks ai is the furthest advancement of technology when it can't compete with ancient tech. literally can't do what a calculator can do reliably. or a timer. or a calendar.

47

Please let's try to keep generative AI from claiming the entire word "AI".
Current generative AI is good at and built for mimicking patterns with boundary conditions.
This means it does a decent job of imitating authoritative knowledge, but it's just mimicking it.
People are hyped for it because it looks knowledgeable, it's relatively simple to make, and a lot of what we do is text based so it's easy to apply.

There are a lot of other types of AI, the majority even, that work significantly better, take a small fraction of the computing power and provide helpful and meaningful results. They just don't look like anything other than complex math, which is all any of them are in the end.

14
uranibabareply
lemmy.world

A calculator, timer or calendar can’t help me write an essay. You are comparing tools meant for different tasks. At least build your argumentets on something reasonable.

-18
dustyDatareply
lemmy.world

Why argue with someone who isn't intelligent enough to write their essays without mechanical assistance?

14
uranibabareply
lemmy.world

I want a more diverse discussion about LLM and AI, not the default ”AI bad” response that is so common here. :(

-1
dustyDatareply
lemmy.world

Then stop dismissing other people's “argumentets”. Unfortunately, most AI proponents don't realize that the AI use case that is being pushed by it's makers and owners is not “a tool to assist users”, but “a tool for executives to replace humans”. Is it a dumb proposal? absolutely. It doesn't reduce the moral responsibility of those promoting AI. They are supporting the destruction of people's livelihoods to make the wealthiest human being in history slightly wealthier, and curse knowledge workers to poverty just like factory workers were in their time by the exact same political and economic class of soulless pricks.

2
uranibabareply
lemmy.world

If the argument want as you have laid it out, I would not dismiss it. But I cannot do that when the arguemnt is ”hammers in general are bad because I cannot use them to drive to work” or ”also your essay fucking sucks. learn to put together a coherent thought instead of relying on a glorified autocorrect that doesn’t have them at all to do it for you”. That second one is an actual quote.

What you bring up is how a few people is power are using AI to increase their wealth without regards for human suffering. I agree that what they are doing is wrong. And the discussion should be about how AI affects our society, how it is used and who controls it. This does not make AI a bad tool, it makes it a tool that can used in a bad way to cause a lot of harm.

-2
dustyDatareply
lemmy.world

"If the argument want as you have laid it out, I would not dismiss it."

Your autocorrect software is failing you.

What is your argument? It is OK for a few people to hurt others, since you personally are benefiting, in a very small way, from the cruelty? That's a shit argument to make.

If AI is "just a tool", then how come it doesn't do any of the things it is promised to do? The issue is not expecting "a hammer to drive to work". The problem is that LLMs makers promised a car, you order one, and receive a screwdriver on the mail. Because "screwdrivers are just a tool, you can use it to assemble a car". It's a scam, it is fraud, it is lying and stealing from others to capitalize on bad tech.

If AI is just a tool, its an unethical and immoral tool.

1

I’m trying to say that one should call a fraud a fraud, not a bad screwdriver.
You want to have a discussion about the fraud? Don’t say that screwdriver suck, say that it did not do what is was advertised to do.

It is OK for a few people to hurt others, since you personally are benefiting, in a very small way, from the cruelty?

That is not what I tried to say.

0

I wonder why anyone would want an "AI girlfriend" or whatever ridiculous thing tech bros are trying to shoehorn monetization into to capitalize on the pervasive disconnect in society today.

And then, when I read a post like yours, referring to someone like that, it all suddenly makes sense. Given the choice, I'd also rather spend time with unthinking silicon than an asshole who talks to people like you do.

-2

Weak argument, dude

Did you use your computers spell check, ever? Cuz you'd fall for your own smart-assery if you did

"Why argue with someone who needs something else to write the essay for them" might be better

-4
pyrereply
lemmy.world

funny how it's not "intelligent" enough to say "hey I don't really do math" and instead feeds me bullshit that I have to correct and then it'll say "oh yeah totally right sorry here's the actual answer that I wouldn't have given if you hadn't corrected me as the one who asked the question"

also your essay fucking sucks. learn to put together a coherent thought instead of relying on a glorified autocorrect that doesn't have them at all to do it for you.

14

funny how it’s not “intelligent” enough to say “hey I don’t really do math”

From what I understand, that is how OpenAI has decided to make their LLM and not an inherit property of LLMs, but I could you be wrong.

also your essay fucking sucks

Did you read it?

learn to put together a coherent thought instead of relying on a glorified autocorrect that doesn’t have them at all to do it for you.

I'll take a guess here. You think I had the LLM write my essey for me. You also think I used it to correct my spelling.
I already have other software that can help me with my spelling, so that was not needed. I wrote my whole essey first, because actually doing myself is faster and gives a better result than trying to prompt an AI to do it, at least for me.

What I did do was feed my text into an LLM to see how I could improve the structure of my text, how tense could be used correctly and if any words that I used could be changed for a better substitute. All of those are things that I could do myself, but I had an excellent tool to help me with it so I used it.

Not using it would be just as stupid as not using a software to correct spelling becuase it might get the spelling wrong.

I think you do not understand how to get the most out of an LLM or you are using it wrong. Or both.

-1
Zronreply
lemmy.world

Take an English class you illiterate gremlin.

Resource intense auto correct that does not understand the information it’s stringing together should not be used to write anything academically or professionally.

11

If you don't want to use all the tools at your desposal, that's your choice. If I had a tool that could help me formulate my text into the proper tense and help me use words most suited for a academic setting, why should I not use it? Did you know that writing a paper is part of university stuides, English major or not?

Or do you not understand how to use an LLM? Do you think that one just prompts it and use whatever it produces? That is just as stupid as entering random number into a calculator, excpect it to calculate what you wanted and then say ”caluclators are bad because it gave the wrong answer”.

0
Owlreply
mander.xyz

Learn to add together big numbers in your head

-3
Zronreply
lemmy.world

And that has to do with writing essays how?

3
Owlreply
mander.xyz

A calculator, timer or calendar can’t help me write an essay.

Those are all tools, you're bashing this guy for using one of them, so I'm bashing you for using a calculator. I'm pretty sure that you used one once in your life

0

Oh I see, you didn’t catch my meaning that AI is a shitty tool for even the thing OP was talking about.

I refer you to my first comment as guidance on how you can improve your reading comprehension.

1

Japan still generally places more emphasis on quality over shitting out shiny new, overpriced garbage as fast as possible

44

Maybe Japan is so advanced it already moved past the overhyped generative “AI” and that’s why we haven’t heard anything about it

36
lemm.ee

Doc: "No wonder this circuit failed; it says 'Made in Japan'."
Marty: "What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan."

31
Korhakareply
sopuli.xyz

I think they had a poor reputation and then rapidly improved which led to their current reputation

11
superkretreply
feddit.org

They started out like China, making cheaper copies of Western tech. Then they started to innovate.

China is now on exactly the same path, and it's well into the phase where they are innovating, but most people still refuse to acknowledge that.

9
shawn1122reply
lemm.ee

Western tech had a massive head start.

When a country's tech manufacturing is being developed it's going to start by making what already exists because.. it has to start somewhere.

It didn't take long for Japanese cars to supersede American cars. China is now doing the same to both American and Japanese cars. Nissan nearly went out of business and is still in trouble. Tesla's situation isn't helped by how dislikable its founder is so its value is plumetting.

Most countries don't know how to deal with the advent Chinese EVs so they're just slapping massive tariffs on them and hoping they figure something out in the meantime.

It isn't just going to stop at Japan and China though. Japan was subsidized by the US post WW2 and China built its manufacturing from the ground up. There are many other countries on that path which will lead to significant global competition. The West is going to have to keep its head up if it wants to remain competitive by the end of the century.

The leading Western nation responding to increased global competition with reactionary protectionism is a bad start. It's squandering all of the soft power the US has cultivated post WW2 leaving a power vacuum for China and other influential nations on the ascension to capitalize on.

7

It's also worth noting that, economically, it's not surprising that the country with the most people would have the largest economy.

There's nothing fundamentally different between the people of the US and China beyond the conditions they're born in. Insofar as innovation is a product of economics, educational investment, opportunity for innovation and a random chance it happens, and economic strength is a product of innovation and raw work output, it follows that more people leads to more work output, and eventually to a larger, more innovative economy.

A disorganized China and some key innovation breakthroughs by the west last century gave a significant headstart, and some of Maos more unwise choices slowed their catch-up, but it's not surprising that an organized country with five times the US population would surpass us in economics and innovation, to say nothing of being competitive.

5
Korhakareply
sopuli.xyz

Really? Isn't it pretty obvious, I mean they make electric cars now.

3

Yeah but a lot of people still don't realize that they make better electric cars now.

3
feddit.org

Their AI needs longer to develop cause it has to be folded a million times.

28

They have impure silicon there so their software dev practices had to become way more advanced to compensate

8

Defines "ages". Blue leds came out of Japan somewhat recently and that's pretty huge

25

Veritasium has an awesome video about the Japanese scientist that discovered blue LEDs, guy basically did it single handedly despite pushback from his boss. Absolutely insane scientific achievement

14

Looking back, I think we can say that the year 2000 was a much better time than 2025

5
Klearreply
sh.itjust.works

Not true. Their goverment stopped requiring floppy disks... *checks notes* ...last year!

9
prolereply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

There are some things where fax still makes sense. Maybe I'm old, but I'm not a fan of "digital signatures" and "digital seals" for professional licenses. In cases where a document needs to be signed and/or sealed, I would much prefer a fax to a PDF with a "digital seal". But that's just me and I'm a weird dude.

Edit: Turns out fax is insecure. Did not know this but it makes sense.

2

Modern PDF signing creates a digital fingerprint showing the device it was used on, whose credentials were used, a timestamp, and even a location if location services are turned on.

But yea, I guess all that just can't compete with the ironclad security of a fucking ink pen. Oh, sorry. A copy of an ink pen. So much more secure and traceable.

5

There are some things where fax still makes sense

Nope.

Fax is insecure, you'd be better off signing w/o a "digital seal" or whatever and emailing it in. You can also print, sign, scan, and send, just like w/ a fax, but send as a PDF instead of insecurely over the telephone wires. I've done both digital signatures and scanned regular signatures, both work and are better than fax.

3

I don't use fax... I was not aware that it was insecure but I guess that makes sense.

1

I think it means that they were ahead of the curve prior to the year 2000, which is when they started to fall behind the curve.

Not going to comment on the accuracy, but it makes sense to me.

9

I actually find this interesting, part of me wonders if there technological advancement meant they didn't need to make changes/innovation, which led to others having issues having to innovate beyond what Japan did.

Hence why they are still stuck in 2000s

1

I don't exactly keep up with the technological innovations of every country, but I get the feeling it isn't so much that Japan hasn't innovated in decades, so much as they haven't done anything he (it's 4chan, let's be frank, it's a he) personally finds interesting or that is publicized in the medium he gets his news from.

9

i think with digital technology manufacturing quality not matter as much so everyone get cheap chinese shit

6

It's more feature complete than mastodon, but it's also one hell of a resource hog on your browser

7

Unfortunately their tradition also causes them to work their asses off to such a degree they have even less kids than other developed countries and their restrictive immigration policy prevents this problem from being at least softened a little bit. Whole villages are getting deserted, not because of local industries vanishing like in the US (mostly) but simply because there are no young people anymore causing the necessary infrastructure for kids and teenagers to vanish as well -> nobody moves there -> everything's fucked.

Unfortunately they keep voting for conservative governments as well, so no necessary change ever happens.

3

Because Japan has become conservative in everything it seems, including technology..

4
lemm.ee

no they didn't lol hikikomori have existed in some form throughout the world for centuries

6

They named it. Japan created whole modern corporate working culture, the problem is they overdosed with their invention.

2

The Plaza Accord happened. Japan was also demonized in media and politics like China is now.

Edit: The people downvoting need a history lesson. Here’s a good place to start:

The Coming War with Japan

Just one example of the attitude towards Japan during its height.

3

I genuinely think using generative AIs to do your job for you should be grounds for immediate termination under just cause.

Machines have no agency and can never be held responsible for anything, thus should never be put under professional responsibility.

I can't wait for these models to colapse onto themselves.

1

japan and germans selling goods to america with no tax etc, they had no serious miltary concerns, invesment, america protects them, there is a invest sell cycle to them so they can produce more tech and goods until 80s and 90s america stops buying because it hurts their economy and japan and german passed them now they both in crisis. no major market to sell no spare money to inovation no more protection.

0
lemm.ee

it's wild seeing americans say japan is in decline... by whose standards? why must they want what you want?

-3
lemm.ee

We're not talking about America, we're talking about Japan. Or, gaijin are

-2

The Japanese talk about it, too, homie

Also, gaikokujin if you don't wanna sound racist. I get that it can be neutral (and have used it to refer to myself even), but I'm not gonna let the context you used it in slide

0
VeryFrugalreply
sh.itjust.works

DeepSeek AI being a wrapper for ChatGPT’s API.

I don't think that's true and their innovations are pretty impressive. Sad that they are ruled by genocidal dictator fuckhead

16
lemmy.world

I hate China, but they absolutely are ahead of of the curve on science and technology. They still produce cheap worthless shit but that doesn't change the fact that they also produce cutting edge shit which can be found nowhere else in the world.

Even their AI costs less to run than OpenAI. Luckily their investment in it will yield nothing of value.

15
reddthat.com

I'm glad you are able to recognize China's technological shortfalls.

You're clearly a smart person, I was wondering if you could help me with my aero-defense project. We'd like to armor our planes to better survive being shot at. Here's an image of one of our bullet riddled planes that landed a few hours ago:

Where do you think I should put the armor? Just where all the red dots are?

2
reddthat.com

You say know what it is, and yet your original comment shows you don't. You clearly never questioned if the information you were receiving about China was perhaps filtered. You barely hesr about the hundreds of millions that China has lifted out of extreme poverty, you do hear, get video clips, and see constant reposts when an escalator has a catastrophic failure a decade ago.

5
reddthat.com

nah, my info's pretty fresh. I've never seen western countries detain people randomly and then condem them to death tho.

They are literally rounding people up with tattoos and sending them to work camps in El Salvador, so you're not exactly up to date.

I'm not even a big China fan, I just recognized the bias in what you were saying. You're assumptions about China are like my dad thinking there's a good chance he'll win the lottery because every day he hears about a lottery winner. If the media that reported on every lottery winner had to also spend equal time reporting in every lottery loser, that would disabuse everyone of that notion.

You're upset not because I accused you of something that is false, but that you know I'm right and that's embarrassing for you.

8