Here are a few thoughts as I digest it all. The EU passed new laws recently strictly regulating AI. They are so severe that they have relegated the EU to be a follower and not a leader in the AI arms race. Gavin Newsome learned from their mistakes and vetoed California's attempt to replicate a heavy handed regulatory approach he felt was misguided. What the piece failed to address was the arms race between democracies and dictatorships and how we can win it.
For example, China is a real threat to the USA's leadership in AI technology as it has a much larger corpus of data it can use to train its AI models, and much more control over how to leverage its resources. They proved this in seizing control of the rare earth metals market. It has no regulations limiting the capture or use of data from its citizens or companies. It also recently surrounded the island nation of Taiwan in a show of force, where most of the chips are still manufactured. Were China to make a larger military move to invade Taiwan it could quickly lead to WW3.
The USA is in a very difficult predicament it created with its promotion of free global trade. The crown jewel of AI manufacturing is in Taiwan and as you pointed out some dictators still believe they can capture that capability through war. This makes it imperative for the USA to strengthen this glaring strategic weakness even beyond what Biden has tried to do with the CHIPS Act.
The new TSMC plant in Arizona recently reported chip yields that were 4% higher than those in Taiwan. With tens of billions slated to be invested there it is still not moving fast enough. Elon Musk recently built the largest cluster of AI GPUs on the planet in Memphis, Tennessee for xAI, his new AI company. Jensen Huang the CEO of NVIDIA, the most valuable company on the planet as the maker of most of those GPUs, said Musk's team ramped the whole project up there in 19 days which is insanely fast and was not considered possible.
Musk's vast experience in building his Tesla Gigafactories all over the world, including in Shanghai, no doubt helped him learn how to build this cluster of AI supercomputing so rapidly. Some forget he also seeded a non-profit organization (at that time) called OpenAI with a $50 million investment, and was warning the US Senate about the dangers of AI long before anyone else of his stature in industry. He pleaded with them to become more active in establishing a US led strategy and he was years ahead of the curve in doing that.
For the world's democracies to remain the leaders in this new technology so critical to our survival they must learn to harness the private sector in a way that incents and optimizes its production while, as you point out, regulating it in appropriate ways to protect privacy and national security. They cannot stymie it with over-regulation like the EU and give the leadership to China and its allies as it did with rare earth metals.
It's a very tall order that has never been faced before, and regardless of the outcome of the most recent election we must learn how to work together in order to preserve our freedoms and those of our democratic allies around the world. Leading us through the existential risks we are now facing may be the most important challenge we have ever faced. We cannot achieve this as a divided nation. It will take all of us setting aside our differences and working closely together in both our public and private sectors to continue to be the light of the world, the last and best hope for all mankind. The small steps and the giant leaps have already happened. The race to end all races has now begun.
Barry and DeduceMoi, thank you both for taking the time to explain so much. While I may not be in the '100% AI comfort zone' yet, at least I am out of the '100% ignorant and nervous as hell zone!'
I have a subfolder in my Barry Gander folder called 'Read these again. Twice'. 3 guesses where this one is going and the first two don't count. Thanks again.
Phenomenal piece! I'm adding Nexus to my reading list. Sapiens was great as well. However, that bitcoin price reference is not accurate. Sounds more like the all time high. It's now just under $69K per bitcoin.
Here are a few thoughts as I digest it all. The EU passed new laws recently strictly regulating AI. They are so severe that they have relegated the EU to be a follower and not a leader in the AI arms race. Gavin Newsome learned from their mistakes and vetoed California's attempt to replicate a heavy handed regulatory approach he felt was misguided. What the piece failed to address was the arms race between democracies and dictatorships and how we can win it.
For example, China is a real threat to the USA's leadership in AI technology as it has a much larger corpus of data it can use to train its AI models, and much more control over how to leverage its resources. They proved this in seizing control of the rare earth metals market. It has no regulations limiting the capture or use of data from its citizens or companies. It also recently surrounded the island nation of Taiwan in a show of force, where most of the chips are still manufactured. Were China to make a larger military move to invade Taiwan it could quickly lead to WW3.
The USA is in a very difficult predicament it created with its promotion of free global trade. The crown jewel of AI manufacturing is in Taiwan and as you pointed out some dictators still believe they can capture that capability through war. This makes it imperative for the USA to strengthen this glaring strategic weakness even beyond what Biden has tried to do with the CHIPS Act.
The new TSMC plant in Arizona recently reported chip yields that were 4% higher than those in Taiwan. With tens of billions slated to be invested there it is still not moving fast enough. Elon Musk recently built the largest cluster of AI GPUs on the planet in Memphis, Tennessee for xAI, his new AI company. Jensen Huang the CEO of NVIDIA, the most valuable company on the planet as the maker of most of those GPUs, said Musk's team ramped the whole project up there in 19 days which is insanely fast and was not considered possible.
Musk's vast experience in building his Tesla Gigafactories all over the world, including in Shanghai, no doubt helped him learn how to build this cluster of AI supercomputing so rapidly. Some forget he also seeded a non-profit organization (at that time) called OpenAI with a $50 million investment, and was warning the US Senate about the dangers of AI long before anyone else of his stature in industry. He pleaded with them to become more active in establishing a US led strategy and he was years ahead of the curve in doing that.
For the world's democracies to remain the leaders in this new technology so critical to our survival they must learn to harness the private sector in a way that incents and optimizes its production while, as you point out, regulating it in appropriate ways to protect privacy and national security. They cannot stymie it with over-regulation like the EU and give the leadership to China and its allies as it did with rare earth metals.
It's a very tall order that has never been faced before, and regardless of the outcome of the most recent election we must learn how to work together in order to preserve our freedoms and those of our democratic allies around the world. Leading us through the existential risks we are now facing may be the most important challenge we have ever faced. We cannot achieve this as a divided nation. It will take all of us setting aside our differences and working closely together in both our public and private sectors to continue to be the light of the world, the last and best hope for all mankind. The small steps and the giant leaps have already happened. The race to end all races has now begun.
Barry and DeduceMoi, thank you both for taking the time to explain so much. While I may not be in the '100% AI comfort zone' yet, at least I am out of the '100% ignorant and nervous as hell zone!'
I have a subfolder in my Barry Gander folder called 'Read these again. Twice'. 3 guesses where this one is going and the first two don't count. Thanks again.
This is very flattering, Peter - and you have raised the bar quite a bit! LOL Many thanks...
Phenomenal piece! I'm adding Nexus to my reading list. Sapiens was great as well. However, that bitcoin price reference is not accurate. Sounds more like the all time high. It's now just under $69K per bitcoin.