[nozzlegear]

Personally I'm not convinced by pro-accelerationism arguments. Why shouldn't technical progress be hard? Why shouldn't the inevitable be held back as long as possible? What does it mean to have someone else eat our lunch in terms of AI?

[dyauspitr]

It’s because you live in a world with competitors now this isn’t the 60s and the 70s anymore. There are legitimately quite a few countries that can effectively compete. Someone else eating your lunch in this case means you’re poor, have no global power and life for all of us will be worse than what we currently enjoy.

[nozzlegear]

But in terms of AI, what does that actually mean? If the Chinese are ahead of us and have "eaten our lunch," what are the actual effects? Cheaper AI for everyone with the existential threat that they may shut off access whenever they like? We're not building weapons here, there's no end goal unless you believe in the myth of AGI that these companies are pushing. US companies won't suddenly take their LLMs offline if China's become sufficiently advanced.

[dyauspitr]

I mean, that is the shortest term possible thinking. These mortals are only going to keep getting better if we had some sort of inflection point where massive scientific discoveries become easy America loses its advantage and simple terms that just means you’ll be poor. Have less money healthcare will suck. Jobs will be hard to find and you’ll eventually have to do whatever your Chinese overlords tell you.

[customguy]

What's the competition about? If you can generate more value from less, why should that make anyone else poorer?