AI arms race: dividing the world?

In 2017, I exhibited a sculpture depicting Xi Jinping on a throne flanked by Putin and Trump. The piece symbolized China's potential to lead in AI, leveraging its monopoly over the data of 1.7 billion people and its tightening grip on Taiwan’s chip fabrication industry.

The AI arms race among the US, China, Russia, and their respective tech giants will mirror Cold War-era rivalries, where competing factions vie for supremacy. We will witness whether a single company or nation achieves global dominance or if the world fractures into East and West ecosystems, each controlled by superintelligences with their own cultures and laws.

The US excels in technological innovation, bolstered by freedoms that foster rapid idea exchange. Conversely, China's authoritarian regime enables swift decision-making, resource mobilization, and population control.

While the US appears technologically superior, China’s strategic prowess and cultural influence present a formidable challenge. It’s likely that both contrasting AI models will coexist like rival mafia families, each adhering to their territories to avoid an all-out war for unified control.

These power struggles will likely be regional, with competing AI corporations confronting a classic prisoner's dilemma: trust their competitors to exercise restraint or launch a preemptive strike out of fear of betrayal?

As Sam Altman remarked, “The road to AGI should be a giant power struggle.”