[sleeplessworld]

These are thought experiments. So other sensible viewpoints are only a contribution. I am myself also trying to work out where AI leaves us. Not just in this case, but because we will be hit by AI in the computer science field - hardware, software, everywhere - and potentially many places in general society.

I do not immediately see why strong market actors would not be able to close an attacker down in this way. I buy the argument that tech can be 'out of the bottle'. But this does not necessarily mean that it is feasible to use for market competition. It is often more likely that the tech is absorbed by existing strong market players. But as happens right now, you can influence markets, professions and peoples behaviour by making free (no pay) market tests on a large enough scale. Which is interesting in itself.

I did business studies at university and we had a lot of work on market forces. And the text books were full of examples of market situations where competitors attacked and was succesfully fended off using legal action - both warranted and unwarranted. And by other means. And wipe out by buy out is completely normal. I do not have much data on this, but I would think that a lot of acquihires, are actually done as market defence. With the basic intention to close down competitive tech. Maybe the acquired tech, knowledge and brains is used sometimes, and then probably incorporated into existing tech, but I think this is not always the main purpose of the acquihire. It is probably counter intuitive to think like this for tech people (I am one myself). But business people think in market dynamics (and money) first. The tech can often be a surprisingly long way down in the list of priorities - where we think it should be much higher up.

I have myself worked in companies that did a merger, where the merging entity was spun off by a parent company - in all cases a tech department that was no longer wanted by the parent company - and in the aftermath of the merger, the business entity was in reality obliterated by the new company, much more than it was merged or absorbed. Made a lot of people in the merged entity unhappy and rightfully so.