Cairo Review Article on US China AI Competition

A Costly Illusion of Control: No Winners, Many Losers in U.S.-China AI Race

This week the Cairo Review published my lengthy article about the costs of US China AI competition, text available here, in which I argue that the aggressive U.S. approach to China risks triggering conflict between the two nations while upending any progress to a global framework for AI safety and security.

I left out a lot of detail around the full origins of the paradigm shift in Washington on this critical issue, the role of EA, DC think tanks, key personalities, and government officials in the Biden administration driving AI policy, who White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks stressed he had identified—half a dozen— and criticized as being out of touch with the technology and Silicon Valley in a recent podcast. While I agree with some aspects of Sack’s analysis here, the discussion on the podcast by Sacks and other panelists around China specifically is the standard fare that I consider dangerous coming from certain corners, blithely accepting, with very little clear justification, for example, the need to control China’s ability to develop AI.

The panel at some point veered onto other China topics, highlighting the major dependencies of US companies on critical industrial inputs from China, but the panelists seemed almost surreally unaware that China holds chokepoints similar to say, GPUs, that Beijing can and has weaponized to respond to the controls focused on controlling AI. For more on this, see China's rare earth restrictions: More collateral damage from US export controls.

On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, I also responded to comment Sacks made about the Biden administration personnel driving AI controls and specifically the AI Diffusion Framework, which he and the Trump team hate and have rescinded. I noted that just as he held that policymakers doing AI policy did not have experience in Silicon Valley with technology companies, current policymakers holding the auto-pen and making technology policy do not have experience living and working in China, and neither speak the language, nor understand the system. This should be clear from the All in One podcast in general, where China issues are never ever discussed by actual China experts. You cannot have it both ways Mr. Sacks…..

Enjoy the longer read, and thanks to the Cairo Review editing team for such a pleasant experience….