First of all, I am glad you wrote this. It is a useful exercise to consider comparisons between this and other proposals, as you say.
I think all of the alternatives you reference are better than this plan aside from xlr8ion and (depending on implementation) the pause.
The main advantage of the other solutions is that they establish lasting institutions, mechanisms for coordination, or plans of action that convert the massive amounts of geopolitical capital burned for these actions into plausible pathways to existential security. Whereas the culling plan just places us back in 2024 or so.
It’s also worth noting that an AGI ban, treaty, and multilateral megaproject can each be seen as supersets of a GPU cull.
I think the fact portrayed by this graph is underemphasized.
It has significant implications for both domestic and international competition. On the domestic side, it’s relevant to the landscape of competition as AI R&D automation kicks off. On the international side, it is one of the most elegant ways to argue that DSA is likely.
As a corollary, I’m not sure we’ve adequately oriented AI policy and governance strategy based on endgame considerations like the vulnerable world hypothesis and longterm value competition. All of these questions and problems might hit us in a very small window following AI R&D automation.