Didn’t you note yourself in your last update that the prediction of “China waking up to AGI” by mid-2026 in AI 2027 hasn’t been met at all? In fact, the Chinese AI space is more competitive than ever, with the assent of Xi himself making a whole speech supporting openness and global governance over securitization. The arms race narrative that is helping the industry justify not slowing down is wholly one-sided and self-propelled.
I agree that we could have predicted China somewhat better by predicting that they wouldn’t think of themselves as being in an AI race in 2026, whereas instead we thought that by this point probably they would. But we would have horribly mispredicted the US if we had said that the US government and/or companies didn’t see themselves as being in an AI race in 2026.
I agree that the arms race narrative that is helping the industry justify not slowing down is wholly one-sided and self-propelled, and if you had asked me two years ago I would have said it myself. We had this in mind while writing AI 2027, and it’s illustrated in the story, e.g. the fact that Chinese actions are a response to US actions and the fact that China tries to come to the table and negotiate and the US rebuffs them.
Didn’t you note yourself in your last update that the prediction of “China waking up to AGI” by mid-2026 in AI 2027 hasn’t been met at all? In fact, the Chinese AI space is more competitive than ever, with the assent of Xi himself making a whole speech supporting openness and global governance over securitization. The arms race narrative that is helping the industry justify not slowing down is wholly one-sided and self-propelled.
I agree that we could have predicted China somewhat better by predicting that they wouldn’t think of themselves as being in an AI race in 2026, whereas instead we thought that by this point probably they would. But we would have horribly mispredicted the US if we had said that the US government and/or companies didn’t see themselves as being in an AI race in 2026.
I agree that the arms race narrative that is helping the industry justify not slowing down is wholly one-sided and self-propelled, and if you had asked me two years ago I would have said it myself. We had this in mind while writing AI 2027, and it’s illustrated in the story, e.g. the fact that Chinese actions are a response to US actions and the fact that China tries to come to the table and negotiate and the US rebuffs them.