Anyone interested in the topic of whether the US can stay ahead of China should ask AI to explain to them the Chinese concepts of 空降美国人 and 美宝.
These concepts are the reason why during some periods flights to the US have had an uncanny number of pregnant women and flights back to China have had an uncanny number of newborn babies.
Now these babies are adults with US citizenship, with some who returned to the US after primary school and became fully fluent native English speakers, and some of whom may be thoroughly culturally loyal to the Chinese communist party. And 100% hireable by top US AI firms and working there as we speak.
It’s staring everyone right in the face, but it’s taboo to talk about, because people conflate concerns about cultural loyalty with racism.
I don’t dislike these people. I welcome them. I also hope they will learn the value of freedom and (representative) democracy. btw Taiwan is a litmus test. (If you are one of the people I’m speaking about, and you think it would be great if the CCP could take over Taiwan, your values are not aligned with freedom and democracy.)
The point is it’s just silly to think we can stay ahead of China. Some of their best researchers are embedded in some of our best teams.
Keeping the technology from our best researchers is not going to work imho. The only avenue I see is to try to culture hack the AI efforts, and maybe most of the researchers, to be well aligned as we go.