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 to 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 propaganda and rhetoric focused on U.S. and China AI is missing most of reality. China cannot afford to bankrupt America. Without American consumerism, the world as we know it stops. 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 for myself to assess my thoughts on the subject.
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 investment in countermeasures. Large corporations with much to gain have weaponised fear to increase corporate demand and fear in government. They are motivated to bring in as much investment as they can, both by generating fear and by promising returns on investment that are increasingly impossible to deliver.
Why Do People Not Nuke Each Other?
Simple: it is bad for business.
When the bubble bursts, it is going to be 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
I always try to be objective in anything that I write, but of course these are my opinions, and they may contain unintended biases.
Someone who has strong, credible thoughts on the subject is Karen Hao. I found her interview on DOAC quite stimulating. You may too.
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.