TED Radio Hour Who is really shaping the future of AI?
17 snips
Dec 19, 2025 
Alvin Wang Graylin, a seasoned entrepreneur and AI expert, explores three futures of AI: Elysium, Mad Max, and Star Trek, emphasizing the impact of global politics. He warns of inequality and potential conflict arising from an AI arms race. John Ruwitch, an NPR tech correspondent, contrasts U.S. and China's approaches to AI, highlighting Taiwan's role in chip production geopolitics. The two discuss education and cooperation in AI, suggesting collaborative models may be essential for a beneficial future in technology.
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Three Divergent Futures From AI
- Alvin Wang Graylin outlines three divergent futures driven by AI: extreme inequality, violent collapse, or abundance like Star Trek.
- He argues current incentives push toward concentration and conflict unless we treat AI as a shared public good.
From Cultural Revolution To MIT And GPUs
- Alvin recounts family history: born in China during the Cultural Revolution with an American grandmother who was a journalist.
- He later moved to the U.S., studied at MIT, and helped develop early GPU technology used in AI hardware.
Competing Narratives Shape AI Strategy
- Graylin says U.S. rhetoric frames AI as a zero-sum national competition to secure strategic advantage and create dependencies.
- He contrasts that with China's different framing focused on deploying AI across sectors to deliver public benefits.