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The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

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Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "dominate new AI research" really mean? If AI develops enough to successfully out-perform people at highly intellectual tasks, why would being first matter? Why do we need "your" AI output when we can just ask our own for a similar result? Why do people think about this like the Manhattan Project when it could just as easily be electrification? Sure, some people made a lot of money selling light bulbs. But…

The way US dominated in some of the industries (including software, for instance) was by being first to extract large value, and then funding the best people with compensation unachievable elsewhere. This meant that all the talent in the world gravitated towards the US, but that was gradually changing already with compensation catching up. Still, I believe US only hastened this with their change of immigration polici…

> funding the best people

that brought surveillance capitalism? this analysis needs a lot of refinement

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#672
post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everybody thinks it's nonsensical. Here's a different take: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Anyone_Builds_It,_Everyone_...

Yudkowski is a clown, the local crackhead in your street is probably more accurate and less insane than him.

If he's a clown what part of his theory is the circus?

Are you saying that superintelligence is impossible?

Are you saying that the alignment problem will certainty be solved before superintelligence emerges?

Are you saying that a superintelligent being connected to the internet would be unable to gain resources such as GPU time, money, and social influence?

Are you saying that a superintelligent being would for some reason be incapable of deception and cunning?

Are you saying that a superintelligent being would necessarily regard human flourishing as a prime objective to be prized above it's own goals and ambitions?

If it's really just doomerism we should be able to point to the flaws in his argument instead of making ad hominem attacks.

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#673
post #313
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe seems both better capable of sustaining democracy, privacy and rule of law. USA is on verge of being irreversibly done for in all three areas. It can happen in Europe too, but the full fall is not that close.

Privacy is a concern everywhere, but the center of gravity of the issue moves further up or down the chain depending on the country. The structure of the US makes it basically the single most secure democracy anywhere right now or in history. No country in Europe or Europe as a whole is even competitive by comparison. The main issue we're facing is that we are by far the primary target for foreign funded activism and…

From Wikipedia, United States government and policy, citing several democratic institutes:

"The United States was the most prominent liberal democracy for much of the 20th and early 21st centuries, but has undergone significant democratic backsliding and a shift toward a hybrid regime—a political system combining autocratic and democratic features.[185][186][237] There is an ongoing debate among political scientists on whether the country is more appropriately classified as an electoral autocracy or illiberal democracy, with few still considering it a robust liberal democracy.[238]"

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#674
post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

many-many words, going sideways and around as you can't go against the basic thermodynamics facts directly. What is your point? My point, i'll repeat, is that while 80C GPU will still radiate while surrounded by 40C air, it will be receiving back the radiation from the 40C air, whereis in space it will radiate the same while receiving practically nothing back from the environment. Both cases obviously is considered w…

from my point of view, ben_w definitely understand thermodynamics better than you. I'll point out that generally speaking radiative heat transfer from air is not particularly significant locally: it only tends to matter in the details when you're dealing with the whole atmosphere, which on average is a lot cooler. The transfer is also not blackbody radiation, so even then you can't really plug the air temperature int…

>I'll point out that generally speaking radiative heat transfer from air is not particularly significant locally:

so, you also think like ben_w that if we put something into a vacuum bottle here on surface on the Earth it will get cool down like in the vacuum of space.

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" For Beijing to achieve those goals, Climate Action Tracker says China needs "clear targets for coal consumption reduction" in its new 5YP. However, the economic roadmap released in March was not "explicit about how fossil fuels will be constrained," said China analyst Qi Qin of the Finland-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Though Chinese President Xi Jinping promised in 2021 to detail a reduction i…

Same person being quoted in the same article: > New Chinese government guidelines on fossil fuels released on April 22 support the view that the country is willing to move away from finite fossil fuels, strengthen energy independence and still achieve its climate targets, says Qin. > "The new central guideline talks about strictly controlling fossil fuel consumption, reducing coal and controlling oil. It still leaves…

I agree that the Chinese 5Y plan is better than the US policy "Drill, baby, drill!". But how much exactly, we will see.

Lets drill more into details:

" Against this backdrop, coal has re-emerged as a critical stabilizing force in China’s power system. This helps explain the relatively cautious policy signals embedded in China’s 15th Five-Year Plan. While the plan reiterates long-term decarbonization commitments — including reducing carbon intensity by 17 percent and raising the share of non-fossil energy to 25 percent by 2030 — it still stops short of setting explicit timelines for coal or oil consumption to peak. This reflects a deliberate effort to preserve flexibility as Chinese policymakers balance energy transition goals with near-term electric system stability.

In practice, China’s coal production has rebounded significantly. After nearly a decade of supply-side reforms that kept output around 4 billion tonnes annually, coal production rose sharply following the 2022 power shortages and has continued to increase, reaching a record 4.85 billion tonnes in 2025. "

https://thediplomat.com/2026/04/coal-is-rising-in-chinas-cle...

I would like to note "reducing carbon intensity", doesn't mean reducing total carbon emissions, it's reducting carbon emissions per unit GDP.

This is in strong contrast to EU

"Specifically, the EU has a legally binding headline emission reduction target of 90% by 2040 relative to 1990, with a domestic target of 85% and up to 5% of international carbon credits."

https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/climate-strategies-ta...

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yudkowski is a clown, the local crackhead in your street is probably more accurate and less insane than him.

At this point we should have had Ai induced apocalypse a few times according to him

I haven't read from him in a while, but I don't think there was a single dated prediction that supports your argument. Do you have any sources for this claim?

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#677
post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yudkowski is a clown, the local crackhead in your street is probably more accurate and less insane than him.

If he's a clown what part of his theory is the circus? Are you saying that superintelligence is impossible? Are you saying that the alignment problem will certainty be solved before superintelligence emerges? Are you saying that a superintelligent being connected to the internet would be unable to gain resources such as GPU time, money, and social influence? Are you saying that a superintelligent being would for some…

>Are you saying that superintelligence is impossible?

Yes, end of the discussion, I don't debate metaphysics with crackheads, sociology with psychopaths or geography with flat earthers, or very bad science fiction with yudkowski. Going on about "exposing the flaws in the argument" of the crackhead just means wasting your time.

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point we should have had Ai induced apocalypse a few times according to him

I haven't read from him in a while, but I don't think there was a single dated prediction that supports your argument. Do you have any sources for this claim?

The crackhead also doesn't make dated predictions, yet I don't see people holding him up as a great modern thinker and predictor of the future.

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my coworkers points out to me every sports reference that pops up in our internal company communications (e.g. "WINNING", "Going to put together a winning team," etc). It seems like everything in the US is couched in competitive language.

Yeah, its no accident that the U.S. is the number one economy, it comes from that kind of thinking across the populace. Complacency gets you conquered.

Number one economy yes, but other measures lag: education, health care outcomes, overall happiness, life expectancy...

I suspect that when you bring a competitive attitude into every aspect of life it limits how much you're willing to invest in systems that don't seem to give you an individual advantage. Americans are much more against single payer healthcare, or investing in public transit, or other forms of social support than their peer (or "near-peer", to use the government's preferred term) nations.

It almost feels like a comedic extrapolation of the classic sports-team movie arc: Sure, it's possible to create a team that prizes winning above all else, but is winning all that's worthwhile at the end of the day?

Re: The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization

#680
post #30

Anthropic, OpenAI and Google are the standouts, but the main question for me is, why is this a war? In their own context China has greatly benefitted from this. They shored up their gpu design and manufacturing expertise. If this really is a war, trump is kneecapping the country with his lawlessness and eroding America’s good will. If the world cannot trust China with their data and they cannot trust the U.S. to prov…

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