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Disaffection with the AI community and the hothouse of American politics has led to brain drain... [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-09-17
I have been struck by this article which is showing how toxicity and bigotry has been leading to a brain drain in our country. The article describes only one example of what is happening to the intellectual depreciation which is starting to gut the intelligence pool the US has needed to exceed on the world stage.
“...disaffection with the direction of the AI community and the hothouse of American politics – both its leftwing brand of campus progressivism and the Trump-era national security crusades.”
The article covers the story of Song-Chun Zhu who became one of the world’s leading authorities in artificial intelligence.
The young Zhu became obsessed with what people left behind after they died. One day, he came across a book that contained his family genealogy. When he asked the bookkeeper why it included his ancestors’ dates of birth and death but nothing about their lives, the man told him matter of factly that they were peasants, so there was nothing worth recording. The answer terrified Zhu. He resolved that his fate would be different. In 1992, he left China for the US to pursue a PhD in computer science at Harvard. Later, at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he led one of the most prolific AI research centres in the world, won numerous major awards, and attracted prestigious research grants from the Pentagon and the National Science Foundation. He was celebrated for his pioneering research into how machines can spot patterns in data, which helped lay the groundwork for modern AI systems such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek. He and his wife, and their two US-born daughters, lived in a hilltop home on Los Angeles’s Mulholland Drive. He thought he would never leave. www.theguardian.com/...
I fear America is losing more than we know due to the current political toxicity and bigotry we are seeing. We were (and to some extent still are) a beacon of light to those wanting to not only excel, but to contribute to the improvement of society overall in mathematics, computer science, medical improvements, literature through education and the opportunities our country stood for so many years.
Zhu’s journey from rural China to the helm of one of the US’s leading AI labs was both improbable and part of a much bigger story. For almost a century, the world’s brightest scientific minds were drawn to the US as the place where they could best advance their research. The work of these new arrivals had helped secure US dominance in technologies such as nuclear weapons, semiconductors and AI. Today, that era seems to be coming to a close. Donald Trump is dismantling the very aspects of US society that once made it so appealing for international talents. www.theguardian.com/... (note: italics are mine)
Its a sad state of our country that we are losing so much by the efforts of our own country’s leaders.
Note: If you have questions about particular viewpoints in the article, I would suggest you contact them rather than shooting the messenger for posing what I consider only one issue our country is facing today. Please realize I am only a messenger, not the author of the article presented.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/17/2344014/-Disaffection-with-the-AI-community-and-the-hothouse-of-American-politics-has-led-to-brain-drain?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web
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