Will China or USA Win The AI Arms Race?
It doesn’t matter, as shown by an example from the NFL
I grew up in Southern California as an LA Rams fan. But when they moved to St Louis, I was already living in Florida, so I didn’t remain a Rams fan. And even after they returned to LA, it didn’t matter to me.
So I started seeing the NFL from a “higher” perspective. Since I don’t have a team, what I hope for is the least heartbreak among the fan base.
Get Jeffrey Dutton Smith’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
So if Jacksonville was playing Kansas City to go to the Super Bowl, I would root for Jacksonville. There’s going to be anguish amongst one fan base or the other. But KC has been doing a lot of winning. And Jacksonville not. So a Jacksonville win minimizes the overall human pain.
A corollary is, BTW, that it doesn’t matter who wins the Super Bowl. One fan base will be happy, the rest not.
In the same way, it doesn’t matter who wins the AI race. One “fan base” is going to be happy, the other not.
I used to think it had to be the USA who wins. We were clearly the good guys, and they the bad guys. But Trump and the Iran War laid waste to that!
People are people. The way things are set up right now, one country will win the AI race, and become the supreme country. But the winner will also be the one manipulated by the AI Superintelligence to spread peace and prosperity throughout the land.
So whether China or the USA wins, humanity wins.
(Since I live in the USA, I’m pulling for the home team, but it truly doesn’t matter.) (Except I think the Millennium will be a lot easier on people if the official language is English, not Mandarin or Cantonese. So, go USA!)
