“Beating China to ASI” by PeterMcCluskey

Who benefits if the US develops artificial superintelligence (ASI) faster than China?

One possible answer is that AI kills us all regardless of which country develops it first. People who base their policy on that concern already agree with the conclusions of this post, so I won't focus on that concern here.

This post aims to convince other people, especially people who focus on democracy versus authoritarianism, to be less concerned about which country develops ASI first. I will assume that AIs will be fully aligned with at least one human, and that the effects of AI will be roughly as important as the industrial revolution, or a bit more important.

Expect the Unexpected

Pre-industrial experts would have been fairly surprised if they'd lived to see how the industrial revolution affected political systems. Democracy was uncommon, and the franchise was mostly limited to elites. There was little nationalism, and hardly any sign of a state-run welfare system.

So our prior ought to be that the intelligence revolution will produce similar surprises. We shouldn't extrapolate too much from current policies to post-ASI conditions.

I'll examine several scenarios for how ASI influences political power. Most [...]

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Outline:

(00:49) Expect the Unexpected

(01:43) Leader Personality

(03:27) Benign ASI King

(04:41) Multiple Co-Equal ASIs

(05:11) Bostroms OGI Model

(06:53) Poisoned Democracy

(07:35) Democracy is Dying

(08:13) AI Enhances Government

(09:02) Governments Little Changed by ASI

(09:30) Decisive Advantage?

(11:20) Conclusion

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First published:
December 3rd, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qo8ycERg8tE68raDM/beating-china-to-asi

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.