The Geopolitics Of Why Online Petitions Won’t Stop AI Development
This year's buzz about AI is everything, even more, compared to the metaverse frenzy of 2022.
Last year we saw companies pump billions into the metaverse. We weren't even sure of its utility, yet investment reached $120b by the first half of 2022. With AI, talks are not about money, but the many uses of it.
Yet, with the prospect of use inevitably comes the prospect of disuse. So experts are divided. Praises for AI are closely followed by warnings about it, and the latest is the petition signed by big names in the tech industry, like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, to halt the development of AI for six months.
But who is the petition for? the U.S., or China?
More importantly, since the AI race is a keenly contested one, will the U.S., an industry leader, accept a halt and risk being overtaken by China?
AI has become geopolitics, and petitions don't work at that level.
Why AI Is A Big Deal
It is a game of power, and the best way to understand it would be to understand the 20th-century space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
After WWII, the world had two superpowers: the U.S. and the USSR. The two would later descend into a cold…
