Independently of my other comment, I think you might be under-utilising your premises, in particular the “racing forward” assumption. Why would AI companies by racing to make the first AGI instead of the best AGI? The most likely answer seems to be: they expect large first-mover advantages that outweigh the benefits of taking more time to build a better system.
The fact that AI companies believe this is evidence that the first AGI past some capability threshold actually does have a particularly large impact. Furthermore, the fact that AI companies are chasing the first-mover advantage might also indicate that they’re investing specifically in building the kind of AGI that captures this advantage.
Independently of my other comment, I think you might be under-utilising your premises, in particular the “racing forward” assumption. Why would AI companies by racing to make the first AGI instead of the best AGI? The most likely answer seems to be: they expect large first-mover advantages that outweigh the benefits of taking more time to build a better system.
The fact that AI companies believe this is evidence that the first AGI past some capability threshold actually does have a particularly large impact. Furthermore, the fact that AI companies are chasing the first-mover advantage might also indicate that they’re investing specifically in building the kind of AGI that captures this advantage.