AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

Much of today’s white-collar workforce is paid to take in and process information, and then make a decision or recommendation based on that information—which is precisely what AI algorithms do best.

Unlike the GPTs of the first and second Industrial Revolutions, AI will not facilitate the deskilling of economic production. It won’t take advanced tasks done by a small number of people and break them down further for a larger number of low-skill workers to do. Instead, it will simply take over the execution of tasks that meet two criteria: they

Each of these waves harnesses AI’s power in a different way, disrupting different sectors and weaving artificial intelligence deeper into the fabric of our daily lives. The first two waves—internet AI and business AI—are already all around us, reshaping our digital and financial worlds in ways we can barely register. They are tightening internet co

We can choose a purely technocratic approach—one that sees each of us as a set of financial and material needs to be satisfied—and simply transfer enough cash to all people so that they don’t starve or go homeless. In fact, this notion of universal basic income seems to be becoming more and more popular these days. But in making that choice I belie

internet AI, business AI, perception AI, and autonomous AI.

As a venture-capital investor, I see a particularly strong role for a new kind of impact investing. I foresee a venture ecosystem emerging that views the creation of humanistic service-sector jobs as a good in and of itself. It will steer money into human-focused service projects that can scale up and hire large numbers of people: lactation consult

Horizon Robotics, Bitmain, and Cambricon Technologies

once a fundamental breakthrough has been achieved, the center of gravity quickly shifts from a handful of elite researchers to an army of tinkerers—engineers with just enough expertise to apply the technology to different problems.

Promotion of a broader social good—the long-term payoff in lives saved—is a good enough reason to begin implementation, with outlier cases and legal intricacies to be dealt with in due