I think I mostly agree with you about innovation, but (a) I think that building AI will increasingly be more like building a bigger airport or dam, rather than like inventing something new (resources are the main constraint; ideas are not, happy to discuss this further), and (b) I think that things in the USA could deteriorate, eating away at the advantage the USA has, and (c) I think algorithmic innovations created in the USA will make their way to China in less than a year on average, through various means.
Your model of influence is interesting, and different from mine. Mine is something like: “For me to positively influence the world, I need to produce ideas which then spread through a chain of people to someone important (e.g. someone building AI, or deciding whether to deploy AI). I am separated from important people in the USA by fewer degrees of separation, and moreover the links are much stronger (e.g. my former boss lives in the same house as a top researcher at OpenAI), compared to important people in China. Moreover it’s just inherently more likely that my ideas will spread in the US network than in the Chinese network because my ideas are in English, etc. So I’m orders of magnitude more likely to have a positive effect in the USA than in China. (But, in the long run, there’ll be fewer important people in the USA, and they’ll be more degrees of separation away from me, and a greater number of poseurs will be competing for their attention, so this difference will diminish). Mine seems more intuitive/accurate to me so far.
I’d be interested to hear more about why you think resources are likely to be the main constraint, especially in light of that OpenAI report earlier this year.
I think I mostly agree with you about innovation, but (a) I think that building AI will increasingly be more like building a bigger airport or dam, rather than like inventing something new (resources are the main constraint; ideas are not, happy to discuss this further), and (b) I think that things in the USA could deteriorate, eating away at the advantage the USA has, and (c) I think algorithmic innovations created in the USA will make their way to China in less than a year on average, through various means.
Your model of influence is interesting, and different from mine. Mine is something like: “For me to positively influence the world, I need to produce ideas which then spread through a chain of people to someone important (e.g. someone building AI, or deciding whether to deploy AI). I am separated from important people in the USA by fewer degrees of separation, and moreover the links are much stronger (e.g. my former boss lives in the same house as a top researcher at OpenAI), compared to important people in China. Moreover it’s just inherently more likely that my ideas will spread in the US network than in the Chinese network because my ideas are in English, etc. So I’m orders of magnitude more likely to have a positive effect in the USA than in China. (But, in the long run, there’ll be fewer important people in the USA, and they’ll be more degrees of separation away from me, and a greater number of poseurs will be competing for their attention, so this difference will diminish). Mine seems more intuitive/accurate to me so far.
I’d be interested to hear more about why you think resources are likely to be the main constraint, especially in light of that OpenAI report earlier this year.
OK, sent you a PM