U.S. to tell partners they must pick sides in AI race with China
japantimes.co.jpThis is one of those times when it sure would be useful to have allies. Or perhaps the allies you could have depended on before imposing tariffs, breaching existing agreements, threatening annexation, subjecting them to arbitrary immigration searches, etc. But you know, you gotta show those ungrateful and unreliable countries like Canada who’s boss.
Yeah, that's gonna be a tough one. Do you pick the side of open models you can run and tune in your own country to have control over them, or do you rely on American models that can be turned off at a whim. Seems like the choice is pretty obvious for any country that has even a modicum of sovereignty.
Indeed.
But also, this moves so fast it's only 80 days between Mythos and GLM-5.3*, so the former getting blocked even for just 18 days wiped out 22.5% of the potential head-start advantage of picking the US.
That said, article seems to say the USA's Pax Silica** is about manufacturing the hardware, while China's alternative is about software.
A strange game. I think China's going to win a battle over hardware and supply chains; while a few years ago I'd have expected the USA to win a battle over software, less so today and this software in particular.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Artificial_Intelligence_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Silica
* people I trust seem worried about the cyberattack potential of GLM-5.3 in same way as Mythos; I appreciate some may roll their eyes given how often somone says something like that about different AI models, but remember I'm talking abouy catch-up delay here, not absolute skill.
** The two hard problems in politics are naming things and…
Pax Silica isn't about manufacturing alone though since its goal is to lock clients into an American-managed technology stack across all the strategic tiers. The problem is that China is already deeply embedded in all these layers and processes most of the key minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths. They make a large proportion of the world’s electronic components as well, and they're also building their own chip industry at breakneck speed.
Trying to meaningfully decouple from China involves having to replicate all these supply chains which will drive up costs and slower progress in the near term. And we also see how export controls and decoupling just accelerate China’s own technological development by forcing it to become more independent. there is a real chance the Chinese stack turns out better given that China already leads in basic science and majority of key technologies. Pax Silica may give America some breathing-space, but it can't reverse the existing trends.
I thought competition was supposed to be a good thing.
Not like that!™