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Swag Valance's avatar

If we’re going to have a splinternet, I for one welcome the competition. While Silicon Valley has brought many amazing technologies and services to the world, it is incredibly biased by hyperlocal values and philosophical beliefs. Capitalism, reductionism, individualism/isolationism reign supreme in that value world.

Withholding chips and data is a stalling technique. In my studies of policy, it only offers short-term advantages that erode in the long term. Onshoring and domestic building eventually replace them. And look at how BYD today is making better and far cheaper EVs than Tesla.

My hope is we will see intelligence and AIs reflective of plural values each: China, Silicon Valley, Europe, Africa. Single mindsets do not provide the sort of social diversity we need. Otherwise we will ll suffer from overoptimized intelligence monocultures, brittle to the dynamics of our planetary future.

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David Mattin's avatar

Thanks Swag. A plurality of AIs is the way to go I think. I hope we'll have a really dynamic and plural open source AI space, so that no handful of corporations or any nation state imposes its version of intelligence on the rest of us.

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Felicia Betancourt's avatar

So, we have ourselves a new Cold War. We are building drone armies, clone armies, surveillance systems with unparalleled reach into the lives of ordinary people... and we never got rid of those nuclear warheads, either. I envy those optimistic enough to think a hot war is not inevitable.

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David Mattin's avatar

Thanks for reading Felicia. I share your concern; I certainly don't discount the possibility of a hot war between the US and China. Taiwan is the obvious flash point. On the other hand, there are massive incentives for both sides to seek to avoid such a war. We'll have to see how it plays out.

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Daniel's avatar

Great insights here! Thank you!

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Dave Price's avatar

Of course, we know that TikTok was helpful to Trump in getting re-elected, and he has granted a 75-day reprieve for TikTok, time in which to get a 50% shareholder. Although a great fan of Elon Musk, I hope it will not be him this time around.

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Matthew Kershaw's avatar

Given this theory, it stumps me as to why Trump is pro-TikTok, promising to 'save' the app - their CEO was even at Trump's inauguration today.

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