I think this this points to the strategic supremacy of relevant infrastructure in these scenarios. From what I remember of the battleship era, having an advantage in design didn’t seem to be a particularly large advantage—once a new era was entered, everyone with sufficient infrastructure switches to the new technology and an arms race starts from scratch.
This feels similar to the AI scenario, where technology seems likely to spread quickly through a combination of high financial incentive, interconnected social networks, state-sponsored espionage etc. The way in which a serious differential emerges is likely to be more through a gap in the infrastructure to implement the new technology. It seems that the current world is tilted towards infrastructure ability diffusing fast enough to, but it seems possible that if we have a massive increase in economic growth then this balance is altered and infrastructure gaps emerge, creating differentials that can’t easily be reversed by a few algorithm leaks.
I think this this points to the strategic supremacy of relevant infrastructure in these scenarios. From what I remember of the battleship era, having an advantage in design didn’t seem to be a particularly large advantage—once a new era was entered, everyone with sufficient infrastructure switches to the new technology and an arms race starts from scratch.
This feels similar to the AI scenario, where technology seems likely to spread quickly through a combination of high financial incentive, interconnected social networks, state-sponsored espionage etc. The way in which a serious differential emerges is likely to be more through a gap in the infrastructure to implement the new technology. It seems that the current world is tilted towards infrastructure ability diffusing fast enough to, but it seems possible that if we have a massive increase in economic growth then this balance is altered and infrastructure gaps emerge, creating differentials that can’t easily be reversed by a few algorithm leaks.