At the White House, Chinese President Xi Jinping recently told President Donald Trump that China and America, as “leading nations in artificial intelligence,” have “both the capability and responsibility” to develop it. On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, a bill would impose “an immediate federal moratorium on AI data centers.”
Whether AI turns out to be the most dangerous technology ever built or the most beneficial, the consequence is the same: The country that builds it will decide how it is used. Optimists and pessimists disagree about almost everything else. Not that.
Two facts drive the case. First, the two camps disagree about whether this technology will be good or bad, not about how powerful it will be. Second, China is building it regardless, so an American pause would only change who leads it. Put those together and leading becomes what economists call a dominant strategy: A course that comes out ahead, however things turn out. If AI is dangerous, whoever holds it holds the danger. If it is beneficial, whoever builds it benefits first.
Eliezer Yudkowsky, among the most prominent voices warning about AI, wrote in 2023 that superhuman AI would most likely mean “literally everyone on Earth will die.” Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, wrote in 2024 that AI could compress the medical progress of “the next 50-100 years into five to 10 years.” One expects the end of humanity, the other a century of medicine in a decade. Neither expects anything small.
The power is already visible. This spring, an OpenAI model settled a mathematics problem posed in 1946 that had defeated humans for 80 years. University of Illinois researchers found that, handed a software vulnerability’s public description, an AI agent could exploit 87% of them.
These are the early versions. The leading labs’ stated goal is artificial general intelligence, or AGI: A system that can do whatever a capable person can do at a computer. OpenAI’s charter defines it as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work”; Amodei calls it “a country of geniuses in a datacenter.” Today’s models help a scientist or a hacker; that one would do the job without them. Something that capable will be governed by someone. The question is by whom.
Suppose the pessimists are right and AI is as dangerous as they fear. Even then, slowing down at home changes only who builds it.
Continue reading at The Washington Examiner.
Vitor Melo, PhD, is a Regulatory Policy Fellow at the Archbridge Institute and host of the institute’s “The Cause and Effect Podcast,”“ a multimedia channel that translates complex research into digestible discussion and real-world applications. His research examines the effects of labor and healthcare regulations, the political economy of government policies, and the causes of discrimination across a range of contexts. Dr. Melo received his Ph.D. in economics from Clemson University.
Economics of Flourishing
At the White House, Chinese President Xi Jinping recently told President Donald Trump that China and America, as “leading nations in artificial intelligence,” have “both the capability and responsibility” to develop it. On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, a bill would impose “an immediate federal moratorium on AI data centers.”
Whether AI turns out to be the most dangerous technology ever built or the most beneficial, the consequence is the same: The country that builds it will decide how it is used. Optimists and pessimists disagree about almost everything else. Not that.
Two facts drive the case. First, the two camps disagree about whether this technology will be good or bad, not about how powerful it will be. Second, China is building it regardless, so an American pause would only change who leads it. Put those together and leading becomes what economists call a dominant strategy: A course that comes out ahead, however things turn out. If AI is dangerous, whoever holds it holds the danger. If it is beneficial, whoever builds it benefits first.
Eliezer Yudkowsky, among the most prominent voices warning about AI, wrote in 2023 that superhuman AI would most likely mean “literally everyone on Earth will die.” Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, wrote in 2024 that AI could compress the medical progress of “the next 50-100 years into five to 10 years.” One expects the end of humanity, the other a century of medicine in a decade. Neither expects anything small.
The power is already visible. This spring, an OpenAI model settled a mathematics problem posed in 1946 that had defeated humans for 80 years. University of Illinois researchers found that, handed a software vulnerability’s public description, an AI agent could exploit 87% of them.
These are the early versions. The leading labs’ stated goal is artificial general intelligence, or AGI: A system that can do whatever a capable person can do at a computer. OpenAI’s charter defines it as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work”; Amodei calls it “a country of geniuses in a datacenter.” Today’s models help a scientist or a hacker; that one would do the job without them. Something that capable will be governed by someone. The question is by whom.
Suppose the pessimists are right and AI is as dangerous as they fear. Even then, slowing down at home changes only who builds it.
Continue reading at The Washington Examiner.
Vitor Melo
Vitor Melo, PhD, is a Regulatory Policy Fellow at the Archbridge Institute and host of the institute’s “The Cause and Effect Podcast,”“ a multimedia channel that translates complex research into digestible discussion and real-world applications. His research examines the effects of labor and healthcare regulations, the political economy of government policies, and the causes of discrimination across a range of contexts. Dr. Melo received his Ph.D. in economics from Clemson University.
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