“Worrying about CCP espionage at AI labs is racist” is important to counter.
First off, the CCP does do espionage all the time, and they are undoubtedly going to target the top AI labs.
Secondly, the CCP has an explicit policy of responding “that’s racist!” to all criticisms from Westerners. They know it’s a win-argument button in the current climate. Let’s not fall for such a predictable trap.Thirdly, you can tell if it’s racist by seeing whether they target people of Chinese descent who have no family in China or people who are Asian but not Chinese.The way CCP espionage mostly works is that it gets ordinary citizens to share information, otherwise the CCP will hurt their families who are still in China (e.g. destroy careers, disappear them, torture, etc).If you’re of Chinese descent but have no family in China, there’s no more risk of you being a Chinese spy than anybody else. Likewise, if you’re Korean or Japanese etc there’s no danger.Racism would target anybody Asian looking. That’s what racism is. Judging people by the color of their skin.Even if you use the definition of systemic racism, it doesn’t work. It’s not a system that priviliges one race over another, otherwise it would target people of Chinese descent without any family in China and Koreans and Japanese, etc.
This is not a valid concern and we should not fall for the “it’s racist to worry about CCP espionage!” play.