I'm not concerned on the consumer side of things. We're all part of a global economy. If you want to buy AI services in Germany you can do that easily, just as I can use Google without a problem despite Germany not exactly being at the forefront of the tech. Having Google or Facebook physically located in your country, from a consumer standpoint, actually doesn't really matter at all.
Honestly this whole arrangement has always puzzled me from an American perspective. Americans sacrifice quite a lot in terms of equality, privacy and so forth to be at the forefront of this stuff, and we can just use it all the same because we're good customers. I'll be sad the day the US decides it doesn't want to be in charge!
Software (including A.I.) developed outside of your culture won’t reflect your culture. We already see this problem with regard to racism and sexism — A.I. which cannot detect black people at all, or hand-written healthcare software which cares more about insulin than periods — so for example, if you leave it to America and China, you won’t have any education software (with or without A.I.) which can cope with the difference between a Gymnasium, a Realschule, and a Hauptschule.
USA companies are also already having a lot of trouble with the cultural difference between the “easier to seek forgiveness than ask permission” attitude they’re used to in America as compared to anywhere which enforces rules because they exist for a reason. Google Street View in Germany, for example. I don’t know about Chinese companies, but I assume they also have cultural assumptions that won’t apply outside China.
In principle, in the sense of being able to give all of your citizens the ability to complete any task which previously only experts could achieve.
Google Übersetzer ist oft schrecklich und schlechhören(?) oft meine Worte, aber es ist immer noch deutlich besser als ich auf Deutsch, obwohl ich das Äquivalent einer guten Note an der High School habe.
> Have Americans and the Chinese pondered whether there is some higher goal to the development of AI or just competition for competition's sake?
Americans certainly have; its part of both utopian and distopian fiction. This fiction has been a guiding force with regard to what the AI looks and acts like in many cases, for example Alexa’s adverts were clearly trying to sell it as the ship’s computer in Star Trek.