,
13 tweets,
11 min read
Read on Twitter
U.S. Blacklists 28 Chinese Entities Over Abuses in Xinjiang
The list also includes AI, voice recognition & data companies that have helped construct what amounts to a police state in Xinjiang. Includes ML startups Megvii, SenseTime and Yitu. @AnaSwanson
nyti.ms/2IvAEHo
The list also includes AI, voice recognition & data companies that have helped construct what amounts to a police state in Xinjiang. Includes ML startups Megvii, SenseTime and Yitu. @AnaSwanson
nyti.ms/2IvAEHo
What about American investment banks such as @Citibank, @JPMorgan and (my former employer) @GoldmanSachs who manages the IPO for these ML startups in Hong Kong (of all places...) and help them raise USD funding from international investors?
@Citibank @jpmorgan @GoldmanSachs SenseTime, one of the entities blacklisted by the US, is an AI startup focused on facial recognition.
The interesting thing is that SenseTime is actually a HK company. It was founded by a CUHK (“暴徒大学”) prof, and their office in Tai Po, not too far from a major Lennon Wall.
The interesting thing is that SenseTime is actually a HK company. It was founded by a CUHK (“暴徒大学”) prof, and their office in Tai Po, not too far from a major Lennon Wall.
@Citibank @jpmorgan @GoldmanSachs @SenseTime_AI @CUHKofficial SenseTime won the ImageNet competition in 2016.
They set up a ‘smart policing’ joint venture to provide surveillance technology for Xinjiang in 2017, but sold their stake earlier this year, as it may put off foreign investors as they had plans for an IPO.
They set up a ‘smart policing’ joint venture to provide surveillance technology for Xinjiang in 2017, but sold their stake earlier this year, as it may put off foreign investors as they had plans for an IPO.
@Citibank @jpmorgan @GoldmanSachs @SenseTime_AI @CUHKofficial I feel this story is important, because these firms have deep connections with international research and investment communities. See:
MIT CSAIL partners with SenseTime, iFlyTek providing tech for Xinjiang reddit.com/r/mit/comments…
Sensetime gets out of JV ft.com/content/38aa03…
MIT CSAIL partners with SenseTime, iFlyTek providing tech for Xinjiang reddit.com/r/mit/comments…
Sensetime gets out of JV ft.com/content/38aa03…
In addition to blacklisting companies, Chinese government officials involved in Xinjiang are also being targeted by the U.S.
My take is that if you are an academic researcher working on computer vision, speech, NLP, etc., it’s going to become increasingly more difficult to isolate yourself and your lab from ethical and human rights concerns, and also that these issues are used as geopolitical tools.
The new reality is that people will not only be reading your research for pure technical contributions, but will also look at your funding sources, collaborators and motivation.
This scrutiny will not only happen in the US. See recent examples also in the UK and Australia.
This scrutiny will not only happen in the US. See recent examples also in the UK and Australia.
Answering my question earlier on, @GoldmanSachs is now evaluating its role in the Megvii IPO after the blacklist.
Goldman, Citi, JPM were joint sponsors of their smallish $500M IPO in HK recently. Will be interesting to see implications for upcoming IPOs. reut.rs/320LMUv
Goldman, Citi, JPM were joint sponsors of their smallish $500M IPO in HK recently. Will be interesting to see implications for upcoming IPOs. reut.rs/320LMUv
@GoldmanSachs I guess investors will have to find other ways to go long Chinese authoritarianism.
@GoldmanSachs The actual ban document with the full list of 28 entities:
federalregister.gov/documents/2019…
federalregister.gov/documents/2019…
