Science Archives - Friends of Socialist China

China using AI in support of peace, progress and human rights

On 7 July 2024, the Chinese Permanent Mission to the United Nations office at Geneva, along with several other international organisations, held an event on the theme of “science and technology enabling human rights protection” at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Nearly a hundred experts from around the world attended.

Ali Al-Assam, representing Friends of Socialist China, contributed to the event at the invitation of the Chinese Association for International Understanding (CAFIU). In his presentation, Ali highlighted the potential benefits and risks of artificial intelligence (AI) for human rights protection, and the importance of international cooperation in the field of AI development. He also introduced China’s practices and approaches in the field of AI development and regulation, and drew attention to the Global AI Governance Initiative proposed by China, which seeks to foster international collaboration on AI development, to ensure that AI technologies respect and promote human rights, and to leverage AI to address global challenges.

Embedded below is a video of Ali’s speech, followed by the detailed notes of his presentation.

The event was reported in the China News Service website.

Thank you for inviting me to this meeting dealing with such a key topic: how to make AI work for the people

I am Ali Al-Assam, member of Friends of Socialist China, and also founder of the tech cooperative NewsSocial, that is engaged now in extensive use of AI for community wealth building and Inter-cooperation for the cooperative movement.

AI and Human Rights: A Double-Edged Sword

Promises of AI

• Generative AI is part of the fourth industrial revolution, synthetic biology mobility and energy
• AI is used in B2B and B2C, fuelling huge demand for wafers and connectivity.
• AI is not like other breaking-ground technology such as the steam engine revolution. It is rather a meta-technology that is driving many other technological revolutions and will change modes of production in fundamental ways.
• Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the point at which an AI can perform all human cognitive skills better than the smartest humans.
• The human brain is said to contain around 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion connections between them. China’s Alibaba announced that they have reached 30 trillion connections in their AI system, so things are developing very quickly.
• AI has the potential to create new economies and lift millions out of poverty by driving innovation and efficiency. It offers solutions to some of society’s most challenging problems, such as advancements in healthcare and education.
• It can help people, organizations and countries to deliberate in a rational manner and solve problems peacefully. It is capable of rational thoughts.

Risks of AI

• However, AI can also pose risks to human rights, such as enabling aggression and war – one clear example is what’s happening in Gaza, where the Israelis are using AI-powered systems to enable their genocide.
• Ethical concerns include privacy issues and the lack of transparency and accountability in AI systems.
• Expanding the gap between the rich and the poor.
• The main danger of AI is that it is being driven by uncontrolled interests of financial capital in Western countries where extreme wealth for the few is the norm.

China’s Approach

• China is actively developing AI technologies to drive economic growth and societal benefits. According to China’s State Council dated 6 April, ‘China aims to become the world’s major AI innovation center by 2030, with the scale of its AI core industry exceeding 1 trillion yuan (about 140.9 billion U.S. dollars), and the scale of related industries exceeding 10 trillion yuan.”
• In China, these emerging technologies are subjected to far more regulation than in the West.
• According to the MacroPolo thinktank, nearly half of the world’s top AI researchers come from China, up from about 33 percent three years ago, while only around 18 percent come from US.
• The government supports AI innovation through comprehensive policies and strategic frameworks.
• China has also established ethical guidelines to ensure responsible AI development and usage.
• Initiated the Global AI Governance Initiative was announced last year by President Xi Jinping with a view to fostering international collaboration on AI development and promote inclusivity in AI.

Global AI Initiative – AI for the People

• On October 18 2023, the Global AI Governance Initiative was announced at the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. The proposal put forward an open, fair and efficient approach to the development, security and governance of AI, intending to harness the transformative technologies for the benefit of humanity.

Objectives

• The Global AI Governance Initiative aims to foster international collaboration on AI development.
• It seeks to ensure that AI technologies respect and promote human rights.
• The initiative addresses global challenges by leveraging AI innovation.

Implementation

• Implementation involves multilateral agreements and partnerships among various countries.
• Ethical AI standards and regulations are established to guide AI development.
• The initiative promotes inclusive AI development to avoid biases and discrimination.

Conclusion

• Embrace and implement ethical guidelines and international cooperation in AI development.
• Focus on inclusive AI practices to ensure benefits reach all sectors of society.
• Promote the responsible use of AI technologies to uphold and advance human rights.
• Perhaps cooperate to build multi-lingual Humanity Generative AI engine used a global resource for aid with problem solving and peaceful path for humanity development.

Chinese scientists design new cooling material for buildings to reduce carbon emissions

The following article from Xinhua reports on an exciting scientific development: Chinese researchers have created a sustainable radiative cooling material with the potential to cool buildings by up to 16 degrees Celcius without consuming any energy in the process.

The article notes that “in a world experiencing rapid warming, effectively cooling our homes during sweltering summer months with reduced energy consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions is crucial for meeting carbon reduction targets”. As such, “the novel aerogel holds promise for significantly reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption and paves the way for innovative and sustainable radiative cooling materials in the future”.

According to Victoria Bela in SCMP, “the biodegradable material can be welded together on a large scale using only water, creating planks that can act as a passive cooling material that will reduce the need for energy-hungry cooling methods such as air conditioning and refrigeration that risk undermining the fight against global warming”.

In this area as in many others, China is leading the way in scientific research towards a sustainable future for humanity.

The study is written up in Science.

In a world experiencing rapid warming, effectively cooling our homes during sweltering summer months with reduced energy consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions is crucial for meeting carbon reduction targets.

A team of Chinese researchers has crafted an innovative biomass-derived material using DNA, the genetic blueprint of life. This aerogel demonstrates a remarkable ability to reduce ambient temperatures by 16 degrees Celsius on sunny days, even under intense solar radiation.

The researchers combined DNA and gelatin into an ordered layered aerogel structure that converts absorbed ultraviolet light into visible light to surpass 100 percent solar reflectance, yielding exceptional radiative cooling.

The adoption of biopolymer-based radiative cooling material helps mitigate environmental pollution, according to the study published on Friday in the journal Science.

Moreover, these aerogels, efficiently fabricated on a large scale through water welding, demonstrate remarkable reparability, recyclability and biodegradability.

This aerogel material is poised to revolutionize the energy efficiency of urban architecture as an outer protective layer, said the paper’s corresponding author Zhao Haibo from Sichuan University.

The simulation outcomes of the study have demonstrated a substantial reduction in annual energy expenditure in cooling for buildings across all modeled cities.

The novel aerogel holds promise for significantly reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption and paves the way for innovative and sustainable radiative cooling materials in the future, Zhao said.

China has committed to the dual carbon goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.

Breakthrough by Shanghai doctors uses stem cells to cure diabetes

The following article from China Daily reports on an extremely promising Chinese innovation in the treatment of diabetes: “Doctors in Shanghai have, for the first time in the world, cured a patient’s diabetes through the transplantation of pancreatic cells derived from stem cells.” The patient has been able to function normally without insulin injections for nearly three years.

Up to now, it has been possible to treat severe diabetes patients with pancreatic cell transplantation, but the shortage of donors and the complexity of the technology have meant that clinical needs are not currently being met. The doctors at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital have shown that it is possible to restore normal insulin production using pancreatic cells derived from the patient’s own stem cells – thus not requiring a donor. Yin Hao, director of the hospital’s Organ Transplant Center, commented: “Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes.”

Timothy Kieffer, a professor in the department of cellular and physiological sciences at the University of British Columbia, Canada, is cited by South China Morning Post describing the study as “representing an important advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes.” If the results of the Shanghai study can be reliably reproduced, “it can free patients from the burden of chronic medications, improve health and quality of life, and reduce healthcare expenditures”.

The funding sources for the study were the Chinese Academy of Science, the National Basic Research Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, and the Shenkang Project. The study has been published in the journal Cell Discovery.

Doctors in Shanghai have, for the first time in the world, cured a patient’s diabetes through the transplantation of pancreatic cells derived from stem cells.

The 59-year-old man, who had Type 2 diabetes for 25 years, has been completely weaned off insulin for 33 months, Shanghai Changzheng Hospital announced on Tuesday.

A paper about the medical breakthrough, achieved after more than a decade of endeavor by a team of doctors at the hospital, was published on the website of the journal Cell Discovery on April 30.

It is the first reported instance in the world of a case of diabetes with severely impaired pancreatic islet function being cured via stem cell-derived autologous, regenerative islet transplantation, the hospital said. The most common pancreatic islet cells produce insulin.

Diabetes poses a serious threat to human health. Medical experts said that poor blood sugar control over a long period can lead to severe complications, including blindness, kidney failure, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular complications, and amputation. Life-threatening situations may also occur due to hypoglycemic coma, and ketoacidosis, which happens when the body begins breaking down fat too quickly.

China is the country with the largest diabetic patient population. There are 140 million diabetes patients in the country, of whom about 40 million depend on lifelong insulin injections, according to the International Diabetes Federation.

Experts said severe diabetes patients struggling with blood sugar control can only be effectively treated by minimally invasive transplantation, which injects islet tissue extracted from the pancreas of a donor.

However, due to factors such as a severe shortage of donors and the complexity of the islet isolation technology, it is hard for such transplantation to meet current clinical needs. That made how to regenerate human pancreatic islet tissue on a large scale in vitro a worldwide academic focus, the team in Shanghai said.

Yin Hao, a leading researcher on the team and director of the hospital’s Organ Transplant Center, said they used the patient’s own peripheral blood mononuclear cells and reprogrammed them into autologous induced pluripotent stem cells. They used technology they devised to transform them into “seed cells” and reconstituted pancreatic islet tissue in an artificial environment.

“Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes,” said Yin, whose team conducted the research with scientists from the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

He said the patient, who was at serious risk of diabetes complications, had a kidney transplant in June 2017 but had lost most pancreatic islet function and relied on multiple insulin injections every day.

The patient received the transplantation in July 2021. Eleven weeks after the surgery, he was weaned off external insulin, and the dose of oral drugs for sugar-level control was gradually reduced and completely withdrawn one year later. “Follow-up examinations showed that the patient’s pancreatic islet function was effectively restored, and his renal function was within normal range,” Yin said. “Such results suggested that the treatment can avoid the progression of diabetic complications.”

China, Latin American and Caribbean states deepen their space cooperation

In a significant step to enhance the unity and solidarity of the Global South and to promote economic, scientific and technological cooperation and development, China hosted the first China-Latin American and Caribbean States Space Cooperation Forum in the city of Wuhan, capital of the central province of Hubei, in the last week of April.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the forum in which he said that China and the Latin American and Caribbean countries have achieved fruitful results in space cooperation in recent years, including new progress in the fields of remote sensing satellites, communication satellites and the deep space station network, which have played an important role in promoting scientific and technological progress, strengthening regional connectivity and improving people’s wellbeing.

China is ready to work with the Latin American and Caribbean countries to build a high-level space cooperation partnership, promote space technology to better benefit both peoples, and continue to promote the building of a community of China and the Latin American and Caribbean countries with a shared future.

Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing read out Xi’s letter at the opening ceremony on April 24. In his own speech, Zhang added that China stands ready to work with the Latin American and Caribbean countries to strengthen the synergy of development strategies in the field of space, deepen scientific and technological innovation cooperation, create more application scenarios, promote industrial complementarity and mutual enhancement, and intensify talent exchanges, so as to push biliteral space cooperation to a higher level and bring tangible benefits to the people of both sides.

Luther Castillo Harry, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Honduras, read out the congratulatory letter from President Xiomara Castro. She said that China has been committed to carrying out space cooperation with developing countries, which can help both sides to overcome common challenges, achieve sustainable development and mitigate climate change and natural disasters.

Gabriela Jimenez, Venezuelan Minister of Science and Technology, read out the congratulatory letter from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He said China and Venezuela have close cooperation and profound friendship in the aerospace sector, which is of great significance for promoting space cooperation between China and Latin America.

The forum reviewed and highlighted examples of China’s space cooperation with Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela in particular.

Yue Yunxia, director of the economic research office of the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said space cooperation between China and Latin American countries is not an empty slogan, but covers a wide range of fields.

“China-Latin America space cooperation has helped Latin American countries build their aerospace systems, train high-quality space technology personnel and achieve new breakthroughs in the aerospace field. China-Latin America cooperation on remote-sensing satellites, communication satellites and in the commercial field has promoted connections among Latin American countries and improved people’s well-being.”

The following articles were originally published by the Xinhua News Agency.

Xi sends congratulatory letter to forum on space cooperation with LatAm, Caribbean countries

BEIJING, April 24 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday sent a congratulatory letter to the first China-Latin American and Caribbean States Space Cooperation Forum.

Noting that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the China-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum jointly announced by the leaders of the two sides, Xi said that China and the Latin American and Caribbean countries have seen prosperous development over the past decade in their cooperation in various fields within the framework of the China-CELAC Forum to usher in a new era featuring equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and tangible benefits for the people.

Xi said China and the Latin American and Caribbean countries have yielded fruitful results in space cooperation in recent years, including new progresses in the fields of remote sensing satellites, communication satellites and the deep space station network, which has played an important role in promoting scientific and technological progress, strengthening regional connectivity and improving people’s wellbeing.

The space cooperation forum, co-hosted by the China National Space Administration and the Hubei provincial government, started on Wednesday in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province.

Yuan Longping, 7 September 1930 – 22 May 2021

We are mourning the death and celebrating the life of the world-famous agronomist Yuan Longping. Known as the ‘father of hybrid rice’, Yuan Longping worked tirelessly and selflessly his entire life in the battle against food poverty. His innovations helped to end malnutrition in China, and are currently in use throughout the world.

A biography and tribute can be found on CGTN.

Congratulations on the successful Mars landing

Infographic highlighting the China’s success in the realms of science and space exploration. In the space of just 72 years, China has transitioned from being one of the poorest and most backward countries in the world, ground down by imperialism, to being a global leader in science and technology. This has been made possible by China’s socialist system.