Thanks, some of Quester’s other books on deterrence also seem pretty interesting books also seem interesting.
My post above was actually intended as a minor update to an old post from several years ago on my blog, so I didn’t really expect it to be copied over to LessWrong. If I spent more time rewriting the post again, I think I would focus less on that case, which I think rightly can be contested from a number of directions, and talk more about conditions for race deterrence generally.
Basically, if you can credibly build up the capacity to win an arms race (with significant advantages in the relevant forms of talent, natural resources, industrial capacity, etc.) then you may not even have to race. Limited development could plausibly serve to make capacity credible, gain the advantages of positive externalities from cutting edge R&D, but avoid actually sinking a lot of the economy into the production of destabilizing systems. By showing extreme capability in a limited sense, and credible capability to win a particular race, you may be able to deter racing if the communication of lasting advantage is credible. If lasting advantage is not credible, you may get more of a Sputnik or AlphaGo type event and galvanize competitors toward racing faster.
For global tech competition more generally, it would be interesting to investigate industrial subsidies by competing governments to see in what conditions countries attempt strategic protectionism and to get around the WTO and in which cases they give up a sector of competition. My prior is that protectionism is more likely when an industry is established, and that countries which could have successfully entered a sector can be deterred from doing so.
Thanks, some of Quester’s other books on deterrence also seem pretty interesting books also seem interesting.
My post above was actually intended as a minor update to an old post from several years ago on my blog, so I didn’t really expect it to be copied over to LessWrong. If I spent more time rewriting the post again, I think I would focus less on that case, which I think rightly can be contested from a number of directions, and talk more about conditions for race deterrence generally.
Basically, if you can credibly build up the capacity to win an arms race (with significant advantages in the relevant forms of talent, natural resources, industrial capacity, etc.) then you may not even have to race. Limited development could plausibly serve to make capacity credible, gain the advantages of positive externalities from cutting edge R&D, but avoid actually sinking a lot of the economy into the production of destabilizing systems. By showing extreme capability in a limited sense, and credible capability to win a particular race, you may be able to deter racing if the communication of lasting advantage is credible. If lasting advantage is not credible, you may get more of a Sputnik or AlphaGo type event and galvanize competitors toward racing faster.
For global tech competition more generally, it would be interesting to investigate industrial subsidies by competing governments to see in what conditions countries attempt strategic protectionism and to get around the WTO and in which cases they give up a sector of competition. My prior is that protectionism is more likely when an industry is established, and that countries which could have successfully entered a sector can be deterred from doing so.