I will let you know when I write an article of this type!
In general though, US policy making circles have a long history of applying just enough pressure on other countries so that the frontier of R&D of every emerging field remains in the US. It’s not a coincidence that frontier of quantum computing and genomics and fusion energy and AI and a hundred other technologies all lie in the US.
Sometimes this does lead to war, US military leaders have afaik started wars over who has nuclear weapons, who has chemical weapons and who has oil. But often there’s more subtle levers that can be pulled such as export controls and backchannel collusion with the leading CEOs of that industry.
I don’t at the moment have a list of examples that doesn’t involve the US, but I know they exist and I agree this is worth writing more on.
From my lay perspective w.r.t. international politics, this seems like it would plausibly be good, to be clear. My frontpage says:
Germline engineering will require an international scientific, technological, and social effort, which we encourage and aim to help with. With that said, as the world’s liberal democratic superpower, the United States of America should lead the way on human germline genetic engineering, including enhancement. If America supports this technology while regulating its unsafe and unethical uses, we can show the world how to develop and apply it beneficially.
The US, or at least what the US is supposed to be and isn’t impossibly far from, is a place where you could have strong boundaries preventing the government from restricting genomic liberty, while also supporting the development of the tech.
@TsviBT I don’t know if you were the one who downvoted my comment, but yeah I don’t think you’ve engaged with the strongest version (steelman?) of my critique. Laws (including laws promoting genomic liberty) don’t carry the same weight during a cold war as they do during peacetime. Incentives shape culture, culture shapes laws.
And the incentives change significantly when a technology upsets the fundamental balance of power between the world’s superpowers.
Or maybe you’re arguing “don’t develop any technology” or “don’t develop any powerful technology” because “governments might misuse it”. That’s something you could reasonably argue, but I think you should just argue that in general if that’s what you’re saying, so the case is clearer.
I didn’t downvote any of your comments, and I don’t see any upthread comments with any downvotes!
Anyway, you could steelman your case if you like. It might help if you compared to other technologies, like “We should develop powerful thing X but not superficially similar powerful thing Y because X is much worse given that there are governments”, or something.
I’m not universally arguing against all technology. I’m not even saying that an arms race means this tech is not worth pursuing, just be aware you might be starting an arms race.
Intelligence-enhancing technologies (like superintelligent AI, connectome-mapping for whole brain emulation, human genetic engineering for IQ) are worth studying in a separate bracket IMO because a very small differential in intelligence leads to a very large differential in power (offensive and defensive, scientific and business and political, basically every kind of power).
Yes it’s possible we end up in a world where the US govt is basically competing with its own shadow yet again. US startup builds some tech, it gets copied 6 months later by non-US startup, US startup feels pressure to move faster as a result and deploys next tech, the next tech too gets copied, etc etc.
I’m not saying this will definitely happen, but there’s a bunch of incentives pushing in this direction.
I will let you know when I write an article of this type!
In general though, US policy making circles have a long history of applying just enough pressure on other countries so that the frontier of R&D of every emerging field remains in the US. It’s not a coincidence that frontier of quantum computing and genomics and fusion energy and AI and a hundred other technologies all lie in the US.
Sometimes this does lead to war, US military leaders have afaik started wars over who has nuclear weapons, who has chemical weapons and who has oil. But often there’s more subtle levers that can be pulled such as export controls and backchannel collusion with the leading CEOs of that industry.
I don’t at the moment have a list of examples that doesn’t involve the US, but I know they exist and I agree this is worth writing more on.
From my lay perspective w.r.t. international politics, this seems like it would plausibly be good, to be clear. My frontpage says:
The US, or at least what the US is supposed to be and isn’t impossibly far from, is a place where you could have strong boundaries preventing the government from restricting genomic liberty, while also supporting the development of the tech.
@TsviBT I don’t know if you were the one who downvoted my comment, but yeah I don’t think you’ve engaged with the strongest version (steelman?) of my critique. Laws (including laws promoting genomic liberty) don’t carry the same weight during a cold war as they do during peacetime. Incentives shape culture, culture shapes laws.
And the incentives change significantly when a technology upsets the fundamental balance of power between the world’s superpowers.
Or maybe you’re arguing “don’t develop any technology” or “don’t develop any powerful technology” because “governments might misuse it”. That’s something you could reasonably argue, but I think you should just argue that in general if that’s what you’re saying, so the case is clearer.
I didn’t downvote any of your comments, and I don’t see any upthread comments with any downvotes!
Anyway, you could steelman your case if you like. It might help if you compared to other technologies, like “We should develop powerful thing X but not superficially similar powerful thing Y because X is much worse given that there are governments”, or something.
Okay!
I’m not universally arguing against all technology. I’m not even saying that an arms race means this tech is not worth pursuing, just be aware you might be starting an arms race.
Intelligence-enhancing technologies (like superintelligent AI, connectome-mapping for whole brain emulation, human genetic engineering for IQ) are worth studying in a separate bracket IMO because a very small differential in intelligence leads to a very large differential in power (offensive and defensive, scientific and business and political, basically every kind of power).
Yes it’s possible we end up in a world where the US govt is basically competing with its own shadow yet again. US startup builds some tech, it gets copied 6 months later by non-US startup, US startup feels pressure to move faster as a result and deploys next tech, the next tech too gets copied, etc etc.
I’m not saying this will definitely happen, but there’s a bunch of incentives pushing in this direction.