Did Aschenbrenner Publish Knowing China Would Read It?

Leopold Aschenbrenner published knowing people in the PRC would read the series. He calls it a tough tradeoff he thought about a lot, and he says waking people in the United States, the Western world, and the Democratic coalition is ultimately imperative.

The cat is already out of the bag. AGI is not new anymore, a lot of the takes are old, and he held similar views a year ago. He might not have written it up a year ago, in part because the cat was not out of the bag enough. Managing the challenge, he says, means much broader swaths of society will need to wake up. Getting the project takes a broad bipartisan understanding of the challenges facing the country. His hope is that more people in the United States read the series than the PRC, and he thinks people underrate the importance of writing the strategic picture down.

He tells Dwarkesh Patel the podcast has done a great service to mankind and has overall been good.