As has been noted by some, this current period of innovation occurs within a new emphasis on zero-sum competition between countries for tech advances. Tech competition is nothing new, but the emphasis on “us vs them” seems greatly heightened since the release of LLM style AI tools. Many leaders at the larger AI development companies now talk of an AI tech war with China, and the need for the USA to stay ahead of China as a national security requirement.
As we know, the US Gov is currently trying to support a return of chip manufacturing to locations in the US, and putting the funding in place to accomplish that. Presumably as a matter of national security.
One can’t help noticing that people are carefully counting the number of research papers released by each country, and in perhaps an ironic twist, a large % of research done in the US includes many Chinese-Americans on the author sheet of the studies.
One more note: while it may be hard to say that a giant tech company is or is not “on the US side” of this tech innovation battle, we need to note that competition between “US side of the street” giant tech companies will remain fierce. Perhaps at some point the competition will be moderated by some form of government intervention or regulation; a sort of war time footing?
Despite upwellings of patriotic sentiment and patriotic realities, it’s still a business, and it’s not easy to imagine how that will work as shareholders are all over the world, not just in the US.
In an adjacent area that may not as yet have been affected by world tech battles, MIT Review releases its top 35 Innovators list every year. One might characterize such a list as an example of what the US does best. But these innovators are not necessarily all US citizens either.
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