SenseChat: Better Than TikTok?
April 18, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
In the midst of “chat”-ter about smart software, the Middle Kingdom shifts into babble mode. “Meet SenseChat, China’s Latest Answer to ChatGPT” is an interesting report. Of course, I believe everything I read on the Internet. Others may be more skeptical. To those Doubting Thomasinas I say, “Get with the program.”
The article reports with the solemnity of an MBA quoting from Sunzi or Sun-Tzu (what does a person unable to make sense of ideographs know?):
…SenseChat could tell a story about a cat catching fish, with multiple rounds of questions and responses.
And what else? The write up reported:
… the bot could help with writing computer code, taking in layman-level questions in English or Chinese and then translating them into a workable product.
SenseTime, the company which appears to “own” the technology is, according to the write up:
best known as a leader in computer vision.
Who is funding SenseTime? Perhaps Alibaba, the dragon with the clipped wings and docked tail. The company is on the US sanctions list. Investors in the US? Chinese government entities?
The write up suggests that SenseTime is resource intensive. How will the Chinese company satiate its thirst for computing power? The article “China’s Loongson Unveils 32 Core CPU, Reportedly 4X Faster Than Arm Chip” implies that China’s push to be AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm free is stumbling forward.
But where did the surveillance savvy SenseTime technology originate? The answer is the labs and dorms at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tang Xiao’ou started the company in 2021. Where does SenseTime operated? From a store front in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or a shabby building on Route 128? Nope. The MIT student labors away in the Miami Beach of the Pacific Rim, Pudong, Shanghai.
Several observations:
- Chinese developers, particularly entities involved with the government of the Middle Kingdom, are unlikely to respond from letters signed by US luminaries
- The software is likely to include a number of interesting features, possibly like those on one of the Chinese branded mobiles I once owned which sent data to Singapore data centers and then to other servers in a nearby country. That cloud interaction is a wonderful innovation for some in my opinion.
- Will individuals be able to determine what content was output by SenseTime-type systems?
That last question is an interesting one, isn’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, April 18, 2023
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