Things now started happening at an accelerated pace and on an expanding scale, and it became uncommon for anything to happen as anyone had expected or

Questions, Unasked and Unanswered - by Dean W. Ball

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2024-11-23 15:30:04

Things now started happening at an accelerated pace and on an expanding scale, and it became uncommon for anything to happen as anyone had expected or intended. A World Undone, G.J. Meyer

On Tuesday, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission released its annual report with recommendations to Congress about US policy relating to China. The commission was created by Congress in 2000 to study the US-China relationship. It is, from my vantage point, well-respected in Washington.

Not much about this lengthy document caught my attention. But the first recommendation caused every AI policy researcher’s phone to light up simultaneously:

I. Congress establish and fund a Manhattan Project-like program dedicated to racing to and acquiring an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) capability. AGI is generally defined as systems that are as good as or better than human capabilities across all cognitive domains and would usurp the sharpest human minds at every task. Among the specific actions the Commission recommends for Congress:

Provide broad multiyear contracting authority to the executive branch and associated funding for leading artificial intelligence, cloud, and data center companies and others to advance the stated policy at a pace and scale consistent with the goal of U.S. AGI leadership; and