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Marcelo Rinesi's avatar

Doubling down on your argument: Another depressing side effect of getting foundational technologies wrong might be to *hugely* prolong and cement bubbles. I'm pretty much with Yann LeCun and others on the current level and potential paths of the current bundle of technologies we label "AI", which is "useful but nowhere near or on the path to intelligence, never mind super-intelligence." I had assumed that the hype would erode as familiarity with chatbots reset cultural assumptions of what sort of things imply intelligence (and as OpenAI et al failed to find sustainable business models) but if "OpenAI-style AIs are necessary to long-term national security" becomes embedded in US policy and its attendant cashflows, that's a bubble of bullshit that can be sustained for a lot longer and do a lot more damage.

To be clear, I do think "using software to push forward the frontier of how well we can think" (for various values of "we" and "think") is a linchpin challenge for strategic competition at all levels; misunderstanding or over-committing to specific paths to get there risks not just not keeping your advantage on the field but not developing one in the first place.

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Greg Sanders's avatar

Henry,

Echoing the praise of this piece.

Theoretical proposal. The economic statecraft debate may have a third dimension that you and Newman have helped explicate.

1) Hawkishness vs. dovishness. How big the fence is. This depends on context, humanitarians can be extremely hawkish on arms exports, labor extremely hawkish manufacturing, and the Chamber of Commerce hawkish on intellectual property protection.

2) Circle of trust size. There's a bipartisan group that can be hawkish towards China but favors friend/ally shoring. Even within that group, the inclusion of various Middle Eastern partner states or of the Eurozone as an alternate hub within that circle of trust will be hotly debated.

3) The extent of complexity and capacity with which government institutions are trusted. Incumbent institutions are protective of their prerogatives even when burdened with tasks they lack the workforce and resources to achieve. Many reformers want to clear the thicket of regulation but have little faith in the potential to increase governance capacity.

I think you do valuable work in shining a light on that third dimension. I tend to think you're right on the need for institutions that can manage this complexity, but a critical first step is acknowledging that this is a factor to be debated.

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