"The United States has a strong interest in continuing to develop a robust and competitive artificial intelligence industry that sets the standard for the practice and procedure of AI use globally," the brief reads.
From a purely strategic standpoint, the ultimate goal is artificial general intelligence. Eventually, humanity is going to get there. The question is who gets there first, and what they do with it.
The country that achieves genuinely transformative AGI first could potentially gain an enormous strategic advantage. And if AGI is capable of significantly accelerating AI research itself, that advantage could compound very quickly: AGI helps develop better AI, which accelerates scientific and technological development, which produces even more capable AI.
Whoever gets there second may not necessarily be permanently incapable of catching up, but they could find themselves facing a massive technological and economic gap that becomes increasingly difficult to close.
And here’s where I think things get uncomfortable.
The countries competing to develop this technology are not necessarily going to have the same restrictions. Some countries may be considerably less concerned about copyright, training data, ethical restrictions, censorship, or what subjects an AI is permitted to discuss.
I’m not saying those concerns aren’t legitimate. They absolutely are. But from a purely geopolitical standpoint, there is a potential danger in one country imposing significant self-restraints while its competitors don’t.
Because if AGI really does become as transformative as many people believe it could be, this isn’t just another technology race. It could become a race over scientific advancement, industrial capacity, military technology, economic productivity, and potentially the ability to develop even more advanced AI.
And, honestly, I would rather the United States and other democratic countries reach that point first than China, North Korea, or another highly authoritarian state.
That doesn’t mean I think democratic countries are incapable of abusing powerful technology. Of course they are. The point is that who controls a technology this powerful matters enormously.
So when people talk about AI development purely in terms of corporate profits or whether AI companies should be allowed to train on particular datasets, I think they’re sometimes missing the much larger geopolitical picture.
We’re potentially talking about a technology that could fundamentally alter the balance of power between nations.
That’s a very different conversation.
Disclaimer: I’m not necessarily advocating for AI or LLMs here. I’m simply trying to look at the situation from a purely strategic/geopolitical perspective and consider how governments and other actors might view the race toward AGI.
So hear me out.
From a purely strategic standpoint, the ultimate goal is artificial general intelligence. Eventually, humanity is going to get there. The question is who gets there first, and what they do with it.
The country that achieves genuinely transformative AGI first could potentially gain an enormous strategic advantage. And if AGI is capable of significantly accelerating AI research itself, that advantage could compound very quickly: AGI helps develop better AI, which accelerates scientific and technological development, which produces even more capable AI.
Whoever gets there second may not necessarily be permanently incapable of catching up, but they could find themselves facing a massive technological and economic gap that becomes increasingly difficult to close.
And here’s where I think things get uncomfortable.
The countries competing to develop this technology are not necessarily going to have the same restrictions. Some countries may be considerably less concerned about copyright, training data, ethical restrictions, censorship, or what subjects an AI is permitted to discuss.
I’m not saying those concerns aren’t legitimate. They absolutely are. But from a purely geopolitical standpoint, there is a potential danger in one country imposing significant self-restraints while its competitors don’t.
Because if AGI really does become as transformative as many people believe it could be, this isn’t just another technology race. It could become a race over scientific advancement, industrial capacity, military technology, economic productivity, and potentially the ability to develop even more advanced AI.
And, honestly, I would rather the United States and other democratic countries reach that point first than China, North Korea, or another highly authoritarian state.
That doesn’t mean I think democratic countries are incapable of abusing powerful technology. Of course they are. The point is that who controls a technology this powerful matters enormously.
So when people talk about AI development purely in terms of corporate profits or whether AI companies should be allowed to train on particular datasets, I think they’re sometimes missing the much larger geopolitical picture.
We’re potentially talking about a technology that could fundamentally alter the balance of power between nations.
That’s a very different conversation.
Disclaimer: I’m not necessarily advocating for AI or LLMs here. I’m simply trying to look at the situation from a purely strategic/geopolitical perspective and consider how governments and other actors might view the race toward AGI.