Advances in AI areas like computer vision seem to mostly come from academics who publish their work. Once an innovation is published, it is available for all to use or imitate. I don't see how a state actor is going to make some major AI advance that it is also able to conceal from other states.<p>I'd be particularly bearish on AI for grand strategy. If LLMs need billions of examples of text to outperform humans, an analogous war strategy AI would need to be trained on more examples of warfare than have been conducted in human history.
FYI Authoritarianism will ultimately win, but not in the way you would expect. We will actually be given a great deal of freedom under its rule — perhaps more than we have under current democracy’s.<p>The twist is that the AI itself will ultimately become the Authoritarian. Unless technological progress comes to a screeching halt (nuclear obliteration, or what have you) this outcome is probably inevitable and probably even the best possible outcome.
Kai-Fu Lee hinted at reasons why China would surpass the USA in AI in his book "AI Superpowers" <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38242135-ai-superpowers?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=35YkYyPl2g&rank=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38242135-ai-superpowers?...</a>