The AI Race Nobody Can Win

The breakneck pace of AI progress and the intensity of the competition for AI supremacy has left U.S. policymakers in a difficult position. They must encourage the innovation needed to ensure an advantage over China and to power economic growth; protect against a national security catastrophe; and assuage the concerns of an anxious and skeptical public.

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Sebastian Mallaby calls this the “AI trilemma” in his most recent essay for Foreign Affairs. And he argues that it requires more than the piecemeal measures currently on offer in Washington—or, for that matter, in Beijing or Brussels. Mallaby is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the host of a new podcast called The Spillover, as well as the author of The Infinity Machine, an excellent new book about the founding of the AI lab DeepMind.

Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with him on June 24 about the state of AI competition, about the stakes of that competition, and about how its course will reshape societies, economies, and global politics.

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Sources:

“The AI Trilemma” by Sebastian Elbaum and Sebastian Mallaby

The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby

The Power Law by Sebastian Mallaby

The Man Who Knewby Sebastian Mallaby

“The Age of Magic Money” by Sebastian Mallaby

Chokepoints by Edward Fishman

“How to Fight an Economic War” by Edward Fishman

“The AI Grand Bargain” by Ben Buchanan and Tantum Collins

“The Limits of the American Way of AI: A Conversation with Ben Buchanan”

“The Tech High Ground” by Jake Sullivan

“Is America Losing the High Ground? A Conversation with Jake Sullivan”

This episode of The Foreign Affairs Interview was produced by Ben Metzner and Kanishk Tharoor, with audio engineering by Christopher Koch and original music by Robin Hilton. Special thanks to Irina Hogan.

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