My initial reaction—A lot of AI related predictions are based on “follow the curve” predictions, and this is mostly doing that. With a lack of more deeper underlying theory on the nature of intelligence, I guess that’s all we get.
If you look at the trend of how far behind China is to the US, that has gone from 5 years behind 2 years ago, to maybe 3 months behind now. If you follow that curve, it seems to me that China will be ahead of the US by 2026 (even with the chip controls, and export regulations etc—my take is you’re not giving them enough agency). If you want to follow the curve, IMO you can /s/USA/China after 2026 (i.e—China is ahead of the US), and I can imagine it being a better trend-following prediction. It’s much less convincing to tell a story about Chinese AI labs being ahead given who we are, but I’d put at least a 50⁄50 chance on China being ahead vs. USA being ahead.
Other than that, thanks for putting something concrete out there. Even though it’s less likely the more specific it is, I feel this will get a lot more talked about, and hopefully some people with power (i.e—governments) start paying some attention to disempowerment scenarios.
China has much less compute than the US. They’ve also benefitted from catch-up growth. I agree it’s possible that they’ll be in the lead after 2026 but I don’t think it’s probable.
My initial reaction—A lot of AI related predictions are based on “follow the curve” predictions, and this is mostly doing that. With a lack of more deeper underlying theory on the nature of intelligence, I guess that’s all we get.
If you look at the trend of how far behind China is to the US, that has gone from 5 years behind 2 years ago, to maybe 3 months behind now. If you follow that curve, it seems to me that China will be ahead of the US by 2026 (even with the chip controls, and export regulations etc—my take is you’re not giving them enough agency). If you want to follow the curve, IMO you can /s/USA/China after 2026 (i.e—China is ahead of the US), and I can imagine it being a better trend-following prediction. It’s much less convincing to tell a story about Chinese AI labs being ahead given who we are, but I’d put at least a 50⁄50 chance on China being ahead vs. USA being ahead.
Other than that, thanks for putting something concrete out there. Even though it’s less likely the more specific it is, I feel this will get a lot more talked about, and hopefully some people with power (i.e—governments) start paying some attention to disempowerment scenarios.
China has much less compute than the US. They’ve also benefitted from catch-up growth. I agree it’s possible that they’ll be in the lead after 2026 but I don’t think it’s probable.