When the artificial-intelligence video generator Seedance 2.0 debuted recently, with the ability to create impressively realistic clips of almost anything a user could imagine, it prompted sharply different reactions on opposite sides of the world.
In the United States, many in the movie industry reacted with fear. After a Seedance-generated video, purportedly showing a fight scene between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, spread widely online, Hollywood filmmakers and writers said their jobs could soon be threatened.
In China, however, many responded with pride and excitement. Shares of short-video companies surged. One of China’s best-known directors, Jia Zhangke, shared a short film he made with Seedance, in which his real self and an AI version discussed moviemaking.
“I’m not worried about technology replacing movies. From the very beginning, movies have coexisted with new technology,” Jia wrote on social media. “What really matters is how people use technology.”
The contrasting reactions point to a broader divide between China and much of the West over artificial intelligence: Chinese people appear far more optimistic about it.
People in China are among the most enthusiastic about AI globally, according to a KPMG survey covering 47 countries last year. While 69% of respondents in China said the technology’s benefits outweighed its risks, only 35% of Americans agreed. Other polls have shown similar gaps.
Why is that the case?
Part of the explanation may lie in how the technology has been deployed in each country, as well as how governments and industry leaders discuss it.
Beijing a big champion
China’s focus on AI applications reflects its intensely competitive internet economy. Major companies such as Alibaba, ByteDance and the food-delivery giant Meituan are locked in constant battles for users, and AI has become the latest competitive tool.
The Chinese government has encouraged this emphasis. Xi Jinping has said China’s AI industry should “prioritise practical application”. Officials argue that AI could help address some of China’s toughest challenges, including disparities in health care and a rapidly ageing workforce.
In August, the government outlined a plan called AI+, which aims for AI to reach more than 70% of Chinese society by 2027 and 90% by 2030. The document said AI would “promote a revolutionary leap in productive ability” and help create “higher-quality, beautiful lives”.
Because Chinese officials are promoting AI as a key economic engine, they may also be suppressing more pessimistic views. Crashes involving autonomous driving have drawn widespread attention online, only for related posts to be censored. State media have compared concerns about job losses among taxi drivers to the Luddite movement.
China also does not allow independent labour unions, which in the West have been among the most vocal critics of AI’s potential impact on jobs.
Pride and faith in tech
Many Chinese scholars, investors and entrepreneurs cite a broader historical reason for the optimism. China has modernised rapidly in recent decades, and technology has played a central role in that transformation.
As a result, many Chinese people are accustomed to sweeping technological change.
For many Chinese, the country’s ability to compete with the United States in AI has also become a source of pride, another sign of how far China has come technologically. After Seedance 2.0 was released, the hashtag “Seedance 2.0 has been praised to the skies overseas” became a leading trend on Chinese social media.
“Technology still firmly occupies a particular place in the Chinese imagination: It is still seen as a channel for upward mobility,” Wang wrote.
Even so, signs of caution are emerging, both from the government and from the public.
Some Chinese content creators have voiced unease about the capabilities of Seedance 2.0. Feng Ji, founder of a leading Chinese video-game developer, wrote online that intellectual-property law would face “unprecedented challenges”.
Disney and the Motion Picture Association, which represents major Hollywood studios, have already accused ByteDance, the company behind Seedance, of copyright infringement. Soon after the tool’s release, ByteDance said it would temporarily restrict the creation of videos featuring real people.
The Chinese government has also begun addressing the technology’s potential to disrupt employment, mental health and even the Communist Party’s control over information.
The state news agency reported in January that the government would soon release an action plan to deal with AI’s impact on jobs, as automation threatens to displace workers in some industries.
The New York Times