Should Only Democracies Develop Artificial General Intelligence?

Leopold Aschenbrenner says a narrow coalition of democracies should be the group developing artificial general intelligence. A broader coalition can include dictatorships, and that broader group would get some of the benefits of AI: products, meta-recommendation engines, and last-generation models. By default the United Arab Emirates would not hold a core seat at the artificial general intelligence table.

He says he does not know the AI labs' plan for the landscape. One thing the Middle East does offer is capital, but America has plenty of capital: trillion-dollar companies and very deep financial markets. Microsoft could issue hundreds of billions of dollars of bonds and pay for the clusters. Middle Eastern states are kind of like trillion-dollar oil companies. He still takes seriously the warning that if the United States will not work with the United Arab Emirates or other Middle Eastern countries, they will build data centers, pour money into AI, and support China. The reply he wants is benefit-sharing.

The United Arab Emirates has some money, but a lot of people have money. A core seat is different from using products. The only reason dictators will have enormous leverage over extremely national-security-relevant technology is that we are getting them excited and offering the seat.