It seems to me accepted wisdom in the West that the US owned labs must “beat” the Chinese labs in the race for AGI/ASI.
Even those who don’t think there will be a winner, that essentially the race is to see which country's AI will kill/disempower us first, seem to believe that if there has to be a winner then better it be the US labs. (I haven't seen a survey, so I could be way off here.)
For those in power and those heavily financially invested in the labs this of course makes sense. But what about for the rest of us?
I had myself accepted the wisdom, in the nebulous way you consider propositions in domains where you don’t have any expertise. The CCP is repressive, I thought. They are an authoritarian country and therefore fundamentally a malign actor. Of course they mustn’t win.
Then I heard Victor Shih, Chinese political system expert, talk on Dwarkesh's podcast:
“For the Chinese government, they’re very afraid that some actor—outside, but even inside the Party—is going to use it [AI] as a tool to usurp the Party's power. So they want to know that they have a way of [...]
---
Outline:
(02:45) Who is more willing to slow AI development?
(06:41) Who is more likely to hit the brakes before a rogue ASI breakout?
(13:17) Who is developing models more responsibly?
(17:07) Who is using models more responsibly?
(20:30) Who is more likely to lead us to paradise?
(21:45) Race dynamics
---
First published:
June 3rd, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nmpzH6sLLtKsQhSPM/china-won-t-win-the-ai-race-but-would-it-be-much-worse-if-it
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
