I think the sort of like World in which we're really neck and neack you know we only have a three-month lead are incredibly dangerous right and we're in this like feverish struggle where like if they get ahead they get to dominate maybe they get a decisive Advantage they're building clusters like crazy they're they're willing to throw all caution of the wind we have to keep up there's some crazy new wmds popping up and then we're going to be in the situation where it's like you know crazy new military technology crazy new wmds you know like deterrence mutually Disturbed instruction like keeps changing you know every few weeks and it's like know completely unstable volatile situation that is incredibly dangerous

and then we're going to be in the situation where it's like you know crazy new military technology crazy new wmds you know like deterrence mutually Disturbed instruction like keeps changing you know every few weeks and it's like know completely unstable volatile situation that is incredibly dangerous so it's I think I think you know both both from just the Technologies are dangerous from the alignment point of view you know I think it might be really important during the intelligence explosion to have the sort of six-month uh you know wiggle room to be like look we're going to like dedicate more compute to alignment during this period because we have to get it right we're feeling uneasy about how it's going and um so I think in some sense like one of the most important inputs to whether we will kind of destroy ourselves or whether we will get through this just incredibly crazy period is whether we have that buffer you know a couple years of lead could be utterly decisive and say like military competition right you know if you look at like G War I right G War I you know like the you know Western Coalition forces you know they had you know like 100 to1 kill ratio right and that was like they had better sensors on their tanks you know and they had they had better you know more Precision Precision missiles right like GPS and they had um you know stealth and they had sort of a few you know maybe 20 30 years of technological lead right um and they you know just completely crushed them super intelligence applied to sort of broad fields of R&D and then you know the sort of industrial explosion as well you have the robots you're just making lots of material you know I think that could compress I mean basically compress kind of like a century worth of technological progress into less than a decade and that means that you know a couple years could mean a sort of G War one style like you know advantage in in military Affairs um and um you know including like you know a decisive advantage that even like preempt nukes right suppos like you know how do you find the stealthy nuclear submarines like right now that's a problem of like you have sensors you have the software to like tact where they are you know you can do that you can find them you have kind of like millions or billions of like mosquito like you know size drones and then you know they take out the nuclear submarines they take out the mobile launchers they take out the other nukes and anyway so I think enormously destabilizing enormously important for National Power and at some point I think people are going to realize that not yet but they will and when they will I think there will be sort of you know I don't think it'll just be the sort of AI researchers in charge um and and uh you know I think on the you know the CCP is going to you know have sort of an allout effort to like infiltrate American AI Labs right you know like billions of dollars thousands of PE people you know full force of the sort of you know Ministry of State security CCP is going to try to you know like outbuild us right like they you know they you know power in China you know like the electric grid you know they added a us as you know a complete like they added as much power in the last decade as like sort of entire US Electric good so like the 100 G cluster you at least the 100 gaws is going to be a lot easier for them to get and so I think sort of you know by this point I think it's going to be like extremely intense sort of international competition unlike a nukes the data centers are nukes you have obviously the submarines planes you have bunkers mountains whatever you have so many different places a data center that your 100 gwatt data center we can blow that up if you're like we're concerned right like just like some cruise missile or something it's like very vulnerable to sabotage that gets to the sort of I mean that gets to the sort of insane vulner the volatility of this period post super intelligence right because basically I think so you have the intelligence explosion you have these like superum things on your cluster but you're like you haven't done the industrial explosion yet you don't have your robots yet you haven't kind of you haven't covered the desert in like robot factories yet and that is the sort of crazy moment where you know say say the United States is ahead the CCP is somewhat behind there's actually an enormous incentive for for strike right because if they can take out your data center they you know they know you're about to have just this command decisive lead they know if we can just take out this data center you know then we can stop it and you know they might get desperate basically Our Generation right we're kind of so used to kind of you know basically peace and like you know the world you know American gmany and nothing matters um but you know the sort of like extremely intense and these extraordinary things happening in the world um and like intense International competition is like very much the historical Norm like in some sense it's like um you know sort of uh this there's this sort of 20 year very unique period but like you know the history of the world is like you know you know like in World War II right it was like 50% of GDP went to you know like you know war primig production the ASP over over 60% of GDP you know in in in you know I think Germany and Japan over 100% World War I you know UK Japan sorry UK France Germany all borrowed over 100% of GDP um and um you know I think the sort of much more was on the line right like you know and you know people talk about World War I being so destructive and you know like 20 million Soviet soldiers dying and like 20% of Poland but you know that was just the sort of like that happened all the time right you know like seven years war you know like whatever 20 30% of Prussia died you know like 30 Years War you know like U I think like you know up to 50% of like large swath of Germany died um and um you know I think the question is will these sort of like will people see that the stakes here are really really high and that basically sort of like history is actually back um and I think you know I think the American National Security State thinks very seriously about stuff like this they think very seriously about competition with China I think China very much thinks of itself on this is her historical Mission Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation think a lot about National Power they think a lot about like the world order and then you know I think there's a real question on timing right like do they do they start taking this seriously right like when the intelligence explosion is already happening like quite late or do they start taking this seriously like two years earlier and that matters a lot for how things play out but at some point they will and at some point they will realize that this will be sort of utterly decisive um for you know not just kind of like some proxy war somewhere but you know like whether liberal democracy can continue to thrive whether you know whether the CCP will continue existing um and I think that will activate sort of forces that we haven't seen in a long time

here's what I think we should do I really don't want this volatile period And so a deal with China would be nice it's going to be really tough if you're in this unstable equilibrium I think basically we want to get in position where it is clear that the United States that a sort of Coalition of democratic allies will win it is clear the United States clear to China you know that will require having locked down the secrets that will require having built the 100 gwatt cluster in the United States and having done the natural gas and doing what's necessary then when it is clear that the Democratic Coalition is well ahead then you go to China and then you offer them a deal and you know China will know they're going to win this is going to be they're very scared of what's going to happen we're going to know we're going to win but we're also very scared of what's going to happen because we really want to avoid this kind of like break neck break neck race right at the end um and where things could really go Ary and you know and then and then so then we offer them a deal I think there's an incentive to come to the table I think there's a sort of more stable Arrangement you can do it's a sort of an Adams for piece Arrangement and we're like look we're going to respect you we're not we're not going to like we're not going to use super intelligent against you you can do what you want you're going to get your like you're going to get your slice of the Galaxy um we're going to like we're going to benefit share with you we're going to have some like compute agreement where it's like there's some ratio of compute that you're allowed to have and that's like enforced with her like opposing AIS or whatever and um we're just not going to do we're just not going to do this kind of like vol sort of wmd arms raised to the death