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By Tang Guhan

As the Artificial Intelligence (AI) market will expand rapidly in the near future, Chinese analysts held that  AI will not cause significant unemployment in the long run, which is reflected in in a report  jointly released by the China Development Research Foundation (CDRF), and Sequoia China on Wednesday.

CDRF is a state-run institution for promotion for China’s economic development and social progress and Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm for Apple, Google, Oracle, PayPal, Stripe, YouTube, Instagram, Yahoo! and WhatsApp.

Data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that the worldwide income derived from AI will grow at a compounded annual rate of 55.1 percent from $8 billion in 2016 to $47 billion in 2020.

The AI startups have numbered 2,300 globally, and the IDC estimates that the applications for  AI technologies will save over $60 billion annually for American companies by 2020.

Pan Tianyou, the vice president from Microsoft Research, said AI could not completely replace  human beings since machines are designed to help  them, and  human beingshave cognitive abilities and creativity that machines do not have. However, parts of human work can be given to robots.

Pan appealed to popularize the studies of AI in schools while companies are supposed to conduct digital transformations to their services and products. In history, technology companies subverted traditional industries as the latter’s lack of consciousness and preparation before the internet reforms. He appealed to companies across traditional industries to equip themselves with AI technologies to avoid being replaced by AI companies.

Lv Wei, member of the Standing Committee and the Financial and Economic Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC)， said AI could free human beings from repetitive and rigid tasks. Therefore, the effects of AI technologies to mankind  are controllable. AI technologies are inter-disciplinary, which includes sociology, psychology and neuroscience.

Tang Min, a council member of the Councilor’s Office, State Council (the Chinese central government) and Vice Chairman of the Youcheng China Social Entrepreneur Foundation，said Chinese AI talents rank 7th in the world. He urged the country to educate AI talents at various levels. American R&D, technical and talents are doubled that of China, while the number of primary level AI employees in the US was 13.8 times that of China, which means China lacks not only senior AI talents but also needs primary level AI employees. Rural migrant workers could be the main force for the primary level AI employees.