The China thing is broadly just Nationalism rather than an actual threat at the moment. Even China has acknowledged it by reigning in AI research and excess in favor of pursuing function and utility, leaving the US to do as we do best: throw money at every conceivable idea, and bailout those with the most economic or political clout when the bubble pops or fire erupts.
Also, I don’t think you fully appreciate the distance to which humans in power will scheme to preserve power long past the point of its utility. If future AI needs organic human data to improve, then we will be turned into data generation machines with money granted based on the quality, uniqueness, or importance of said data - which is kinda what Capitalism is already doing, if you squint a bit. Those systems, once entrenched, will survive long past the point of necessity provided the populace as a whole doesn’t become aware of that fact. After all, just look at the growing political extremism as more folks realize that not only is the current social contract irreparably broken (all work, no homes, no stability or security with which to take chances for most folks), but that current political mechanisms and institutions built to serve it are similarly unnecessary. It’s partly why, I suspect, Capital is latching so hard onto the idea that AI is their exit strategy, as it means their assets will continue appreciating in value along with their net worth even as the rest of the planet crumbles and burns around them - ensuring their safety, or so they think.
My point is: the future is unknowable, and you should’t underestimate the human desire to humiliate and enslave others to their will by any means necessary.
There's a lot of function and utility in improving on LLMs though, and I don't think they're actually reining in anything. Releases may sometimes slow since discoveries in research are never predictable, but they're pushing. See DeepSeek v3.2[0] which was just released a week ago.
And yes, humans always hunger for power, when there's some kind of value to be had. It's a bit hard to think of any human data which hasn't already been siphoned off in some way and stored somewhere, so there's just going to be nothing more to be gained after full automation. What happens then is whoever has or can gain access to means of production will survive, and those who can't, won't.
> The China thing is broadly just Nationalism rather than an actual threat at the moment
No the China thing is an imminent invasion of a 20 million person democracy. Should the US not defend the World Order in this case, we'll have completely thrown off world police role and the rest of the scores of irredentist countries around the globe are now free to conquer others as they see fit, and all the chaos that follows.
Also, I don’t think you fully appreciate the distance to which humans in power will scheme to preserve power long past the point of its utility. If future AI needs organic human data to improve, then we will be turned into data generation machines with money granted based on the quality, uniqueness, or importance of said data - which is kinda what Capitalism is already doing, if you squint a bit. Those systems, once entrenched, will survive long past the point of necessity provided the populace as a whole doesn’t become aware of that fact. After all, just look at the growing political extremism as more folks realize that not only is the current social contract irreparably broken (all work, no homes, no stability or security with which to take chances for most folks), but that current political mechanisms and institutions built to serve it are similarly unnecessary. It’s partly why, I suspect, Capital is latching so hard onto the idea that AI is their exit strategy, as it means their assets will continue appreciating in value along with their net worth even as the rest of the planet crumbles and burns around them - ensuring their safety, or so they think.
My point is: the future is unknowable, and you should’t underestimate the human desire to humiliate and enslave others to their will by any means necessary.