Will A Give China or the US Total Power? (William MacAskill)
5/10/20261 hr 7 min
Could artificial intelligence hand the US or China 99% of global economic and military power? What happens when millions of autonomous weapons systems are controlled by a single commander-in-chief? Has effective altruism's influence in Silicon Valley accelerated or slowed the race for artificial general intelligence?
Alastair and Rory are joined by William MacAskill to discuss all this and more.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlastair Campbell· Host0:00
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William MacAskill· Guest0:12
It's reasonably likely that a single country ends up with ninety-nine percent of the world economic and military power.
Alastair Campbell· Host0:19
Ninety-nine percent?
William MacAskill· Guest0:20
Yeah, or, or more essentially. Despite all of the hype around AI, I think people are underappreciating the risks. You could have a world where you have a military consisting of millions of autonomous weapons controlled by a single person, you know, in the US, the commander in chief, the most intense concentration of power the world's ever seen. The US could just say, "Okay, we can just... We're just gonna go it alone." And then at that point, all other countries are just locked out of most economic power, and that would be sufficient for total hegemony over the world.
Alastair Campbell· Host0:49
Which of the two current commanders in chief of the two biggest militaries, Xi Jinping and Trump, who is winning that race?
Rory Stewart· Host0:54
This episode is presented by IG. "Sell in May and go away" may be a weird saying in finance, but as many politicians know, a pithy phrase isn't necessarily an effective strategy.
Alastair Campbell· Host1:08
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Rory Stewart· Host1:14
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Alastair Campbell· Host1:28
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