We can steal [China’s] very best manufacturing engineers, and put them to work here.
I am not confident this strategy is viable. Given the Wikipedia page has a list of over 40 convictions (the accusa ions list is far longer) for espionage primarily in tech, and the rate of discovery of such people is increasing, it seems more likely that a high risk is being taken by any company that tries to hire defectors from China. I am insufficiently skilled to weigh the risk against potential gains given the uncertainties involved, but from the scope of the problem and the risks that I do comprehend, I would err on the side of caution.
A perhaps superior strategy is to encourage Europe to hire these engineering experts, which keeps the spies away from frontier technologies, and still gets the honest developers away from China. Also has the knock on effect of supporting Europe’s AI progress.
I am not confident this strategy is viable. Given the Wikipedia page has a list of over 40 convictions (the accusa ions list is far longer) for espionage primarily in tech, and the rate of discovery of such people is increasing, it seems more likely that a high risk is being taken by any company that tries to hire defectors from China. I am insufficiently skilled to weigh the risk against potential gains given the uncertainties involved, but from the scope of the problem and the risks that I do comprehend, I would err on the side of caution.
A perhaps superior strategy is to encourage Europe to hire these engineering experts, which keeps the spies away from frontier technologies, and still gets the honest developers away from China. Also has the knock on effect of supporting Europe’s AI progress.