and by pretending that he has no option but to "go against his own will" and continue it, he gets to make it sound nuclear-bomb-level important.
This is hyping 101.
Yes, maybe everyone is playing 8 dimensional chess and every offhand comment is a subtle play for credibility. Or maybe sometimes people just say what they think.
- Alex Karp genuinely believes China is a threat
- I think China is an economic threat, especially for tech
- An AI arms race is itself threatening; it is not like the nuclear deterrent
- Geopolitical tensions are very convenient for Alex Karp
- America has a history of exaggerating geopolitical threats
- Tech is very credulous with politics
"Yes, maybe everyone is playing 8 dimensional chess and every offhand comment is a subtle play for credibility. Or maybe sometimes people just say what they think".
I mean, dude, a corporate head having a conflict of interest in saying insincere shit to promote the stuff his company makes is not some conspiracy thinking about everybody playing "8 dimensional chess".
It's the very basic baseline case.
Whether or not you believe it, a lot of people view advanced AI the same way.
Barely.
Even in the nuclear weapons CEO case, if they actually believed that, they'd be in another line of business, not making millions of nuclear weapons.
Like I said you can believe whatever you want about good-faith motives, but he didn't have to say he wanted to pause AI, he could have been bright-and-cheery bullish, there was no real advantage to laying his cards out on his qualms.
If the USA pauses AI development, do you think China will?
This is the source of migration allowance but I bet you stand there with a "Refugees welcome" sign.
Or claim to.
"Yes, I would love to pause AI development, but unless we get China to do the same, we're f***, and there's no advantage unilaterally disarming" (not exact, but basically this)
You can assume bad faith on the parts of all actors, but a lot of people in AI feel similarly.