philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

What DeepSeek’s breakthrough says (and doesn’t say) about the ‘AI race’ with China

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Such arguments emphasize the need for the United States to outpace China in scaling up the compute capabilities necessary to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) at all costs, before China “catches up.” This has led some AI companies to convincingly argue, for example, that the negative externalities of speed-building massive data centers at scale are worth the longer-term benefit of developing AGI. Such an argument has significant business upside for AI companies, as they amass greater numbers of chips to gain a competitive advantage. What the DeepSeek example illustrates is that this overwhelming focus on national security—and on compute—limits the space for a real discussion on the tradeoffs of certain governance strategies and the impacts these have in spaces beyond national security.

To plug this gap, the United States needs a better articulation at the policy level of what good governance looks like. This should include a proactive vision for how AI is designed, funded, and governed at home, alongside more government transparency around the national security risks of adversary access to certain technologies. It also requires the US government to be clear about what capabilities, technologies, and applications related to AI it is specifically aiming to regulate.  ...

See the full story here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/what-deepseeks-breakthrough-says-and-doesnt-say-about-the-ai-race-with-china/