In the name of trying to make legible what I think is going on in the average non-expertâs head about this, Iâm going to say a bunch of things I know are likely to be mistaken, incomplete, or inadequately sophisticated. Please donât take these as endorsements that this thinking is correct, just that itâs what I see when I inspect my instincts about this, and suspect other casual spectators might have the same ones.
It feels intuitive that Google and OpenAI and Anthropic etc. are more likely to co-operate with each other than any of them are to co-operate with Alibaba or Tencent. This is for a mixture of practical reasons (because theyâre governed by the same or similar courts of law, e.g. contracts between them seem likely to be cheaper and more reliable, thereâs fewer language barriers) and cultural reasons (theyâre run by people who grew up in a similar environment, told similar things about what kind of person they ought to be, their employees are more likely to socialize with each other, that sort of thing). That said, it does also seem likely that Google stands to gain more from the failure of Microsoft than from the failure of Alibaba: maybe we can think of the US companies as simultaneously closer friends and closer enemies with each other?
I do also imagine that both the US and Chinese governments have the potential to step in when corporations in their country get too powerful, and in particular (again, not coming from a place of expertise on this, just a casual impression) the Chinese government appears more willing and able to seize or direct privately-owned resources in the name of the national interest, e.g. Iâm thinking of when they kind of told a hundred-billion dollar industry to stop existing.
I think thereâs also a mostly-psychological factor at play where if I were a US citizen, then Iâd have a share in US governance as a member of the electorate, and while I might not have a share in US corporate governance, well, at least there is a board of directors thatâs nominally accountable to shareholders, many ordinary people could be shareholders, or if the thing is privately owned, at least there is some pressure from the government, so indirect accountability to me. I can feel like my interests have a stake, a representation, though of course my individual share is so small that its value in anything other than a symbolic sense is questionable. Meanwhile, I feel like I have essentially zero effective influence over Chinese government or corporations; while this is simplifying some realities in both directions, understood psychologically or symbolically the difference is there. This, I suspect, leads to people thinking of all US corporations as essentially amenable to reason or at least coercion, while thinking of Chinese corporations as having no obligation to listen to them at all, even in aggregate.
All this to say that I donât think aggregating US corporate power and Chinese corporate power has no basis in reason or reality; but mostly I say this in the belief that we can and should undo that aggregation more, but understanding why people do it and where it comes from might be useful for that purpose.
(Prefaced with the understanding that your comment is to some extent devilâs advocating and this response may be too)
both the US and Chinese governments have the potential to step in when corporations in their country get too powerful
What is âstep inâ? I think when people are describing things in aggregated national terms without nuance, theyâre implicitly imagining govts either already directing, or soon/âinevitably appropriating and directing (perhaps to aggressive national interest plays). But govts could just as readily regulate and provide guidance on underprovisioned dimensions (like safety and existential risk mitigation). Or they could in fact be powerless, or remain basically passive until too late, or⌠(all live possibilities to me).
In these alternative cases, the kind of language and thinking Iâm highlighting in the post seems like a sort of nonsense to meâlike it doesnât really parse unless you tacitly assume some foregone conclusions.
Please donât take these as endorsements that this thinking is correct, just that itâs what I see when I inspect my instincts about this
Appreciated.
These psychological (and real) factors seem very plausible to me for explaining why mistakes in thinking and communication are made.
maybe we can think of the US companies as simultaneously closer friends and closer enemies with each other?
Mhm, this seems less lossy as a hypothetical model. Even if they were only âcloser friendsâ, though, I donât think itâs at all clearcut enough for it to be appropriate to glom them (and with the govt!) when thinking about strategy. And the more so when tempered by âcloser enemiesâ. As in, I expect anyone doing that to systematically be (harmfully) wrong in their thinking and writing.
I understand what youâre gesturing at regarding anticipation that US actors might associate more with other US than with Chinese actors. I donât know what to think here but it seems far from set in stone.
Some personal anecdata. I worked in a growing internet company for some years. One of the big talking points was doing business in China, which involved making deals with Chinese entities. I wasnât directly involved but I want to say it was⌠somewhat hard but not prohibitive? We ended up with offices in Shanghai, some employees there, and some folks who travelled back and forth sometimes.[1] I tentatively think we did more business with China-based entities than with US-based market-competitors. I confidently know we did more business with non-US-based entities than with US-based market-competitors.
Meanwhile and less anecdotally, the stories about smuggling and rules-lawyering sales under the US govtâs limit are literally examples of US- and China- based actors colluding! Itâs beyond sloppy to summarise that by drawing boundaries around âUSâ and âChinaâ.
I could of course find examples which reinforce the âintra-bloc harmonyâ hypothesis. Point is that it seems far from settled, so resting on implicit assumptions here will predictably lead to errors.
As a tongue-in-cheek aside, shockingly, Chinese colleagues Iâve had in industry and academia are not weird aliens with dangerous values (at least not more than usual). Anyone who reasons on bases like these has basically failed (in a very human and understandable way) to reason at all, as far as Iâm concerned. Most of the weird aliens with dangerous values Iâve met have been Americans and Brits! (There is obviously an egregious sampling bias.) Reasoning on the basis that others will reason like this is entirely valid, unfortunately.
In the name of trying to make legible what I think is going on in the average non-expertâs head about this, Iâm going to say a bunch of things I know are likely to be mistaken, incomplete, or inadequately sophisticated. Please donât take these as endorsements that this thinking is correct, just that itâs what I see when I inspect my instincts about this, and suspect other casual spectators might have the same ones.
It feels intuitive that Google and OpenAI and Anthropic etc. are more likely to co-operate with each other than any of them are to co-operate with Alibaba or Tencent. This is for a mixture of practical reasons (because theyâre governed by the same or similar courts of law, e.g. contracts between them seem likely to be cheaper and more reliable, thereâs fewer language barriers) and cultural reasons (theyâre run by people who grew up in a similar environment, told similar things about what kind of person they ought to be, their employees are more likely to socialize with each other, that sort of thing). That said, it does also seem likely that Google stands to gain more from the failure of Microsoft than from the failure of Alibaba: maybe we can think of the US companies as simultaneously closer friends and closer enemies with each other?
I do also imagine that both the US and Chinese governments have the potential to step in when corporations in their country get too powerful, and in particular (again, not coming from a place of expertise on this, just a casual impression) the Chinese government appears more willing and able to seize or direct privately-owned resources in the name of the national interest, e.g. Iâm thinking of when they kind of told a hundred-billion dollar industry to stop existing.
I think thereâs also a mostly-psychological factor at play where if I were a US citizen, then Iâd have a share in US governance as a member of the electorate, and while I might not have a share in US corporate governance, well, at least there is a board of directors thatâs nominally accountable to shareholders, many ordinary people could be shareholders, or if the thing is privately owned, at least there is some pressure from the government, so indirect accountability to me. I can feel like my interests have a stake, a representation, though of course my individual share is so small that its value in anything other than a symbolic sense is questionable. Meanwhile, I feel like I have essentially zero effective influence over Chinese government or corporations; while this is simplifying some realities in both directions, understood psychologically or symbolically the difference is there. This, I suspect, leads to people thinking of all US corporations as essentially amenable to reason or at least coercion, while thinking of Chinese corporations as having no obligation to listen to them at all, even in aggregate.
All this to say that I donât think aggregating US corporate power and Chinese corporate power has no basis in reason or reality; but mostly I say this in the belief that we can and should undo that aggregation more, but understanding why people do it and where it comes from might be useful for that purpose.
(Prefaced with the understanding that your comment is to some extent devilâs advocating and this response may be too)
What is âstep inâ? I think when people are describing things in aggregated national terms without nuance, theyâre implicitly imagining govts either already directing, or soon/âinevitably appropriating and directing (perhaps to aggressive national interest plays). But govts could just as readily regulate and provide guidance on underprovisioned dimensions (like safety and existential risk mitigation). Or they could in fact be powerless, or remain basically passive until too late, or⌠(all live possibilities to me).
In these alternative cases, the kind of language and thinking Iâm highlighting in the post seems like a sort of nonsense to meâlike it doesnât really parse unless you tacitly assume some foregone conclusions.
Thanks Ben!
Appreciated.
These psychological (and real) factors seem very plausible to me for explaining why mistakes in thinking and communication are made.
Mhm, this seems less lossy as a hypothetical model. Even if they were only âcloser friendsâ, though, I donât think itâs at all clearcut enough for it to be appropriate to glom them (and with the govt!) when thinking about strategy. And the more so when tempered by âcloser enemiesâ. As in, I expect anyone doing that to systematically be (harmfully) wrong in their thinking and writing.
I understand what youâre gesturing at regarding anticipation that US actors might associate more with other US than with Chinese actors. I donât know what to think here but it seems far from set in stone.
Some personal anecdata. I worked in a growing internet company for some years. One of the big talking points was doing business in China, which involved making deals with Chinese entities. I wasnât directly involved but I want to say it was⌠somewhat hard but not prohibitive? We ended up with offices in Shanghai, some employees there, and some folks who travelled back and forth sometimes.[1] I tentatively think we did more business with China-based entities than with US-based market-competitors. I confidently know we did more business with non-US-based entities than with US-based market-competitors.
Meanwhile and less anecdotally, the stories about smuggling and rules-lawyering sales under the US govtâs limit are literally examples of US- and China- based actors colluding! Itâs beyond sloppy to summarise that by drawing boundaries around âUSâ and âChinaâ.
I could of course find examples which reinforce the âintra-bloc harmonyâ hypothesis. Point is that it seems far from settled, so resting on implicit assumptions here will predictably lead to errors.
As a tongue-in-cheek aside, shockingly, Chinese colleagues Iâve had in industry and academia are not weird aliens with dangerous values (at least not more than usual). Anyone who reasons on bases like these has basically failed (in a very human and understandable way) to reason at all, as far as Iâm concerned. Most of the weird aliens with dangerous values Iâve met have been Americans and Brits! (There is obviously an egregious sampling bias.) Reasoning on the basis that others will reason like this is entirely valid, unfortunately.