“China won’t win the AI race but would it be much worse if it did?” by Chastity Ruth

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Recorded03 Jun 2026

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It seems to me accepted wisdom in the West that the US owned labs must “beat” the Chinese labs in the race for AGI/ASI. Even those who don’t think there will be a winner, that essentially the race is to see which country's AI will kill/disempower us first, seem to believe that if there has to be a winner then better it be the US labs. (I haven't seen a survey, so I could be way off here.) For those in power and those heavily financially invested in the labs this of course makes sense. But what about for the rest of us? I had myself accepted the wisdom, in the nebulous way you consider propositions in domains where you don’t have any expertise. The CCP is repressive, I thought. They are an authoritarian country and therefore fundamentally a malign actor. Of course they mustn’t win. Then I heard Victor Shih, Chinese political system expert, talk on Dwarkesh's podcast: “For the Chinese government, they’re very afraid that some actor—outside, but even inside the Party—is going to use it [AI] as a tool to usurp the Party's power. So they want to know that they have a way of [...] ---Outline:(02:45) Who is more willing to slow AI development?(06:41) Who is more likely to hit the brakes before a rogue ASI breakout?(13:17) Who is developing models more responsibly?(17:07) Who is using models more responsibly?(20:30) Who is more likely to lead us to paradise?(21:45) Race dynamics --- First published: June 3rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nmpzH6sLLtKsQhSPM/china-won-t-win-the-ai-race-but-would-it-be-much-worse-if-it --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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