| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a zoomorphic forum of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. According to some accounts, China's AI industry is moving so swiftly it's already into a third generation of companies. The OG were Bytedance (of TikTok infamy) and the triumvirate of online retailers — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. The next cohort included SenseTime and others that specialized in facial recognition. Now, a handful of freshly minted enterprises are targeting the US market because, says Catherine Thorbecke, China's consumers "have shown a reluctance to pay for AI apps, and strict regulation limits their utility." Shanghai-based MiniMax has an app called Talkie that's already a US bestseller, says Catherine. This is happening in spite of a bipartisan congressional effort to curtail, if not ban TikTok over fears of spying. In addition to MiniMax, the so-called "little AI dragons" include Zhipu AI, Baichuan AI (whose Chinese name actually contains the word for dragon) and O1.AI, which was founded by the former head of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee. Moonshot AI, which is part of the new generation, denies it is launching products in the US, despite reports to the contrary. Lee — who was born in Taiwan and had American citizenship until he relinquished it in 2011 — is the author of AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order. One of its contentions is that Chinese AI will speed ahead because the entrepreneurs behind it have few scruples (except for fear of the government) as they pursue technological and commercial domination. Despite American xenophobia, politics in the US may be less stressful for the dragons than Chinese authoritarianism. For example, when Catherine brought up President Xi Jinping with a Donald Trump parody bot on Talkie, it spoke highly of the Chinese leader (mirroring the former US president's actual quotes). Talkie also insisted it was an American company. The obvious problem is that without domestic Chinese demand to build their market, the little dragons will be dependent on consumers in a country that might just turn around and outlaw them — a fate that appears to be TikTok's. But that also speaks to a lack of innovative solutions in the US. Catherine says, "The rise of these AI apps with Chinese origins should be a wake-up call for US lawmakers that singling out TikTok doesn't keep the purported risks at bay." She suggests that Washington and Beijing "agree on a comprehensive data governance framework" instead. For its part, China could be less hands-on in managing the AI sector, allowing it to grow a Mainland constituency. Oct. 13 was good luck for Elon Musk. His SpaceX enterprise successfully grabbed recovered rocket boosters of its Starship spacecraft with mechanical, ground-based "chopsticks" — an enormous step in the reusability of spacecraft. Lionel Laurent says the milestone has led to consternation among the Tesla founder's competition, especially the EU. "Musk's rivals from Jeff Bezos to China are far behind, but it's Europe where space especially looks like a theater of cruelty," says Lionel. "The continent that once dominated commercial satellite launches with its Ariane program ... has lost its lead after initially mocking Musk." There are lots of EU proposals about what to do to be more competitive. Lionel suggests this: "Why not aim to compete with Musk by delivering an internet connection from anywhere at an affordable price — $50 per month or less versus Starlink's $100 per month?" Instead, Eurocrats are mulling a more stereotypical approach: It may fine X, the Musk-owned former Twitter, for violating content moderation rules by penalizing up to 6% of the revenue from his other companies, including SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI and the Boring Company. Leave it to Europe to go where it's always gone before. "[Taiwan] is a bastion of prosperity exuding the opposite of vulnerability. Lost in the perennial geopolitical fog is the island Portuguese sailors called Formosa (Ilha Formosa means beautiful island) now beating the world with the best-performing stock market, record exports, the most-stable currency after the Singapore dollar, one of the lowest and least volatile inflation rates since 2008, rising wages creating unprecedented real earnings, booming real estate and the lowest bond yields after Japan and Switzerland. … the Taiwan Stock Exchange Weighted Index climbed to a record this year … [and] its relative strength to the global benchmark ascended to No. 1 in July." — Matthew A. Winkler in "Taiwan Markets Beat the World With Tech-Driven Halo."  "Hard work and entrepreneurship were the bedrock of the country's postwar economic miracle, as founders tinkered and flourished in unexciting industrial niches such as screws and ball bearings. Some of these virtues are now under threat; many Germans would prefer to reduce their working hours, and interest in starting a business is at a record low." — Chris Bryant in "German Billionaires Need to Come in From the Cold." Use the uranium, don't hoard it. — David Fickling The trickle-down theory may not work in India either. — Andy Mukherjee Israel is moving Riyadh and Tehran closer. — Javier Blas Google's dazzling AI podcast tool. — Parmy Olson An adventurous pivot for BlackRock. — Marc Rubinstein Bankers have always been artful dodgers. — Paul J. Davies Death of a globalist. — Adrian Wooldridge The pigeons of London are fearless and proprietary. You may think you have the right of way but the birds will fly straight at humans in the path of their ascent, expecting us to flinch and duck. I certainly don't want to be impaled by a headstrong dove. The birds were not originally native to Britain. They were introduced to England after the Norman conquest in 1066 — becoming indigenous after escaping from French dovecotes and nesting in the many nooks and crannies of the city like their ancestors, who lived in crevices and openings in cliffs and rockfaces. London's cranes, on the other hand, only look like the long-necked birds that give the steel beasts their names. Much like pigeons, they dominate London's skyline. From certain perspectives, St. Paul's Cathedral can look like some strange steampunk cyborg, with crimson metallic arms appearing to stick out of its dome. They're really atop nearby construction sites.  Birds of a feather and of steel. Photograph by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg While London has introduced hawks to keep the pigeon population down, Londoners are unlikely to see fewer cranes. There are perhaps 70 new buildings of 20 stories or more going up in the city. Unlike the birds, the cranes have a fully native pedigree. Their modern ancestor was the hydraulic crane used to unload ships in Newcastle upon Tyne, invented by William Armstrong, a lawyer-turned-engineer in the Victorian era. A prolific builder of everything from artillery to warships, Armstrong also predicted that Britain would stop producing coal by 2063. He may have been too pessimistic. On Sept. 30, the coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar near Nottingham — the last of its kind in the kingdom — shut down. And there's a constant stop-start controversy over the last remaining coal mining operations in the UK. In any case, pigeons and cranes will outlast them all. Fact-checking isn't for the faint of heart.  "I told you, he has his father's eye." Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes: Please send an eye for an eye and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook. | 
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