[nodja]

No, the US is _leading_ the AI race, but the race isn't over.

What's the point of leading the race for 90% of it, if they're gonna slip on their own sweat and fall down by the end? In non metaphorical terms, what's the point of spending billions of dollars rushing to get the best AI tech at all costs, when the competition can distil your progress and catch up in 6-12 months while only spending 1% of what you spent.

Even in the aspect the article cares about, commercialization, the US is starting to lose marketshare, I've seen people move from cc/codex plans to use glm/opencode plans due to the recent squeeze the US companies put on plan usage, the US companies are screwed if that sticks, not everyone needs the bleeding edge models, they just want to pay $20/month and have the models be decently capable.

[Ekaros]

What if it is not winner take all? What if there is no race. What if what USA has been doing is just burning money with possibly unsustainable debt load and way over build valuations...

AI being commodity server capacity might be a thing. And the customers might even manage without hyperscalers... In that sort of end scenario whole current market might look rather foolish.

[GolfPopper]

>What if there is no race. What if what USA has been doing is just burning money with possibly unsustainable debt load and way over build valuations...

You mean, what if the hype-based billionaire-class is wrong? Isn't suggesting that a sin in America these days?

[generic92034]

Cannot happen, these days. The US taxpayer will be glad to bail them all out (again).

[nba456_]

> No, the US is _leading_ the AI race, but the race isn't over.

When someone says their football team is winning in the first half, do you say, "Umm, no, they're leading, not winning!"

[nodja]

When a cyclist is leading a pack and pushing themselves against the air resistance for half the race, do you expect that cyclist to win, or one of the ones behind that's been taking it easy in the slipstream?

It's a race metaphor not a football metaphor.

[irishcoffee]

I find it very strange that the GP felt the need to correct a difference between leading and winning. If you're at the front of the pack in a race, you are both leading the pack and winning the race.

If your team has more points than the other team, you are both leading the contest and winning the contest.

It is a distinction without a difference.

The elephant in the room, and where the analogy breaks down, is that a race has an end, the finish line. A sports match has a victory condition of some type. Nobody has a damn clue as to the victory condition of this hyperscalar craze. Anyone who says otherwise is incorrect.

[nodja]

GP here, leading and winning are different things in the race context/metaphor.

In foot/cycling races there's often a pack leader, that leader is often not the winner of the race, all they're doing is taking the brunt of the air resistance while everyone else slipstreams behind. For a casual observer it seems that the pack leader will win, but everyone knows that it's gonna be someone that paced themselves that's going to overtake the first spot at the tail end of the race.

[irishcoffee]

You’re moving the goalposts and tying to one specific sport. I didn’t say “winner” nor did anyone else. “Winning” is the operative word, and tying the whole analogy to cycling is as close to a strawman as one can get while having the ability to claim otherwise.

[f33d5173]

The analogy to what "frontier" ai labs are doing is very close.

[koyote]

I have never ever heard a commentator say something like "Arsenal are currently winning with 2-0 against X". It is always leading: "Arsenal are currently leading with 2 goals against X".

[nodja]

If they got there by tiring themselves out more than the other team, yes.

[brabel]

Yes?!

[nothinkjustai]

Well, if they were up by 4 and now it’s 4-3 and the team is under massive pressure, “we’re still winning” is of little condolence to the fans.

[enaaem]

Leading the race makes sense if it's a winner takes all market. AI cannot be a winner takes all market, because of national security reasons.

I would also argue that as AI gets better it will also be more fungible. It will be valuable like electricity. Lots of companies make good money producing electricity, but not the kind of money current investors are hoping for.

[JKCalhoun]

Mark Cuban in a recent interview answered your question: companies are afraid there is going to be just one in the end—sort of the way there is one ad-company now on the internet. They want to be that one.

Whether they're correct that there can be only one is of course a matter of debate. But that is at least the mind-set they are operating under according to Cuban.

[brazukadev]

> sort of the way there is one ad-company now on the internet

Which one, Meta[0]?

0. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/meta-poised-s...

[JKCalhoun]

That kind of does make the point.

[davebren]

That was all based on the assumption that scaling LLMs would lead to AGI. That didn't happen and won't, it can be proven for anyone capable of digging into the details of what models actually are and what they are doing (I recommend Chris Hay's videos).

It's becoming more obvious everyday to people. They'll realize that 1000x the cost for marginal improvements isn't worth it and the market will open up. It'll become more based on tooling and smaller more task-focused models instead of this crazy project to create a data center god to rule over humanity.

[lotsofpulp]

Why would Mark Cuban know anything about the motivations of today’s big tech companies? He has not been involved in tech businesses since he sold a radio on the internet website 26 years ago.

[nradov]

Those guys are all on the same private group chats.

[lotsofpulp]

Why would Mark Cuban be in those group chats?

He was never based in Silicon Valley, and the closest he got was selling a website to Yahoo in 1999. After that, he has mainly sold sports and his media personality for TV shows.

Moreover, why would leaders of trillion dollar big tech companies subject to myriad securities laws be discussing intimate business details with random people that have no domain expertise or influence?

[nradov]

I don't know why. You'll have to ask the chat group administrators. I'm just telling you how things actually work.

https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-t...

[lotsofpulp]

I do not see the names of people in big tech business leadership positions, except maybe Andressen, if he counts. All the other ones look like media personalities or journalists or some two-bit SV founder.