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0 pointsestearum16d ago0 comments

Do you believe the current situation is more akin to the race to the first nukes, where no one could know for sure the other competitors were even racing...

or is it more similar to the Cold War, where there were obviously competitors engaged in the race?

And yes, agreed the equilibrium dynamics for AGI are very different (and far harder to predict) than nukes. That sounds like a good reason to be sure we get there first since presumably any potential advantage wouldn't go to the second or third runner-ups

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sobellian16d ago· 2 in thread

I can't really say I see a similarity to either the Manhattan Project or the Cold War. I don't see how one could apply either massive retaliation or MAD. These are private companies, they are not vested with the necessary authority to destroy anything. Even if they had it, they couldn't. You can't destroy China, they have 1.4B people, nukes, and a large part of the world's manufacturing. So multiple organizations want to do something first, that could be anything from nukes to railroads to lining up for communion wafers.

estearumOP16d ago

You think "arms race" is a dynamic that only applies to literal arms?

"Ability to literally destroy the other entity" is not a necessary or even typical feature of arms races.

sobellian16d ago

Well it's difficult to argue against something that was never specifically stated. If someone is able to state specifically how this is an arms race in any other way than that it's a race at all then I'm happy to have that conversation.

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