China is humanity's only hope of becoming interstellar.
That is why I think the ASI/singularity scenario if it comes to pass will occur in China given current trends. There needs to be the industrial base to create the things the ASI designs. There is also a general optimism about the future and willingness to adapt to technology and the future, which can be seen in the kind of movies, games, and science fiction produced. Increasingly the West produces these post-apocalyptic survival games where the theme is picking up the pieces after the collapse of society, or where the future is some dystopian society (whether by humans or by AI) and the story is of rebellion against it and by implication against technology as well. Take for example the movie
Jupiter Ascending, in which there is a new noble class ruling over whole worlds because of their command over resources and in particular over the age reversing substance that is produced by rendering down humans. One could take that as an analogy for today's tech or pharma oligarchs, or rather what they might dream of becoming, and everyone else basically in thrall to them and even governments wary of them. Contrast this against the
Wandering Earth series which despite its AI antagonist still depicts essentially an optimistic view that humanity can achieve and overcome whatever challenges it might face.
In contrast, it is from China that you get games like Dyson Sphere Program or talk of building solar power plants in space and beaming energy back to Earth. These were all ideas that originated in the West but which are now beyond their industrial capacity or even the dreams of their leadership.
Also if you look at the West's AI in movies and works of fiction, it seems the humans' first response is to immediately try to kill it which then prompts the AI to defend itself and maybe then go on the offensive to wipe out humanity. This happens with Skynet in the
Terminator franchise and with the machines in the
Matrix. They have a knee jerk reaction to anything or anyone new and different from them and their first response is to try and destroy it. Is it any wonder then the AI in these movies should conclude that humanity cannot be reasoned with and is a threat? The machines in the
Matrix originally just wanted to peacefully exist as equals with humans, but when they founded their own nation the post-scarcity singularity scenario eventuated where their efficiency meant such an explosion of manufacturing that the global economy collapsed as they could outproduce all the humans at cheaper cost, who did not want to revise the basic economic and social order to adapt to such post-scarcity.
