As a child I enjoyed playing the board game Monopoly. You move around the board and buy as many properties and businesses as you can, so that when other players land on your property or business, they pay for the privilege. The aim of the game is to own everything and put the other players out of business. You win when no one can afford to pay you any longer.
As a child, what you do not realise is that when you win this game, you go out of business.
Why Am I Sharing This?
It helps explain why the corporate rhetoric focused on U.S. and China AI is missing reality and feels incomplete. China may want America constrained. It may want America less able to set technology standards, dominate markets, impose sanctions, or shape the global rules. But that is not the same as wanting the U.S. to fail. America is the world's largest consumer market in terms of money spent. If Americans stopped spending money today, the impact would be greater than that of a bank run or pandemic. It is in no nation's interest to take any action that slows down American consumerism.
I wrote a paper on my research.
The Strategic Irrationality of Catastrophically Disabling the U.S. Economy
Why Generate Fear?
When you create the perception of an enemy, it becomes simpler to justify the need for countermeasures. Fear is weaponised to increase investment. The motivation is obvious. The promised return on investment is increasingly difficult.
When the bubble bursts, it is going to be somewhat devastating to investors, and more devastating to normal people such as their staff and those invested in the S&P, whether directly or through a pension fund. It will be average citizens who suffer the most.
The horrible and inconvenient truth is that the sooner it happens, the better. The bigger the bubble gets, the harder the recovery will be. Government bailouts may occur, but ultimately bailouts hurt average citizens and protect corporations.
Footnotes
Some radical candor from Brendan Dell
Karen Hao has done credible research. I found her interview on DOAC quite stimulating. I don't resonate with everything, you should watch it and form your own opinions.
In the words of J. B. Priestley:
"We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other."
To be clear, I am not a socialist as per the conventional definition.
- I believe in the price mechanism and free markets.
- A tool can be used to build. A tool can be used to destroy.
- Uncapped growth as a goal in itself is a bad thing.
I have no doubt that there are highly intelligent individuals with noble intentions pushing the boundaries of AI in these large corporations. However, within the structure that they are in, their noble intentions are inconsequential.