Friends,
This week I continued to push on the debate about AI governance, publishing an essay in The Spectator and speaking in multiple venues, both real and virtual. The more I think about it, the more I feel we must remember a central lesson from the Cold War: that it is possible to compete with a rival superpower and yet collaborate on safety at the same time. In 1956, the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian uprising and the hints of nuclear strikes that attended the Suez Crisis coincided almost exactly with the conclusion of negotiations on the IAEA. The following decade brought both the Cuban missile crisis and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Today, the West urgently needs to cooperate with China on AI safety even if competition remains inevitable. The alternative is that dangerous AI models such as Anthropic’s new Mythos Preview will wreak havoc.
In other news, on the latest episode of The Spillover Rebecca Patterson and I discussed the post-war future of the Gulf and the potential impact on western asset prices. Everybody seems to be talking about the war’s impact on oil, gas, fertilizer, and niche commodities such as helium. But there has been less focus on the other channel of contagion: What happens when the go-to source of capital for everything from data centers to real estate is forced to turn inward? Tens of billions of dollars are going to flow into the reconstruction of energy infrastructure, the creation of Hormuz alternatives, and defense. What might this mean for the next funding rounds for Silicon Valley unicorns?
Sorry not to be more positive. But these are fascinating times.
Sebastian |
Sebastian Mallaby
Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow in International Economics
Council on Foreign Relations |
