Subj : AI belongs to humanity, n
To : All
From : Mike Powell
Date : Tue Nov 04 2025 09:19 am
AI belongs to humanity, not superpowers
Date:
Mon, 03 Nov 2025 15:24:23 +0000
Description:
How the U.S. can lead with AI by example in openness, collaboration, and
shared stewardship.
FULL STORY
Donald Trump's new AI Action Plan promises to secure American dominance
through deregulation and American competition. While the goal of making
advancements in AI is admirable, the path proposed misunderstands how AI
innovation actually works.
Having spent decades in AI research and entrepreneurship, from founding
companies to publishing foundational work in information theory and
cryptography, I can tell you that treating AI as a zero-sum national
competition is self-defeating.
The real threat to American leadership is the delusion that any single nation
can or should monopolize humanity's most transformative technology.
In fact, the biggest moat that can be achieved in AI development is achieved
by organizations that get the world's brightest minds to freely contribute
their knowledge. The only way to achieve this is through genuine inclusivity
and openness.
The truth about global AI
Technology can be a great unifier, transcending borders in ways that politics
cannot. Consider how global supply chains, international datasets, and
algorithms developed by research teams worldwide have built today's AI
ecosystem.
Immigrant entrepreneurs have founded or co-founded 55% of America's
billion-dollar startups, with 80% of unicorn companies having an immigrant in
key leadership roles.
International researchers contribute to 76% of patents at top American
universities. These numbers show how openness and collaboration have been the
foundation of American technological leadership.
When we restrict the flow of talent and ideas, we export innovation.
Companies simply move operations elsewhere, and they take jobs and knowledge
with them.
The semiconductor industry already faces a projected shortfall of 146,000
skilled positions in the U.S. Even TSMC's Arizona facilities required
engineers from Taiwan due to local talent shortages.
Why AI monopolies are different
Narrow monopolies can be the best way to accelerate specific technologies,
but AI is not like other technologies. It's an all-encompassing
transformation that touches every aspect of human activity.
AI improves through collective human feedback and diverse data ; broader
cultural context makes AI better. When you restrict who can contribute to and
improve AI, you're limiting the technology's ability to reach its potential.
An AI developed only by one demographic will embed biases that make it
useless for others.
This is why open-source AI models are catching up so quickly. They benefit
from millions of developers finding bugs, suggesting improvements, and
adapting models for thousands of specific use cases that no single company
could ever anticipate.
Attempting to monopolize something this broad and fundamental will trigger
massive global pushback. Closing doors cant stop innovation; it just ensures
it happens elsewhere.
A world where multiple nations and organizations contribute to AI development
is inherently more stable and innovative than one dominated by any single
power. We've seen throughout history that technological progress accelerates
when ideas flow freely across borders, whether in mathematics, physics, or
computer science.
AI is no different, except the stakes are higher and the potential benefits
greater.
The real cost of the arms race mentality
The current approach creates contradictions that harm the very goals it
claims to serve. Tariff regimes increase construction costs for data centers
by 15-20%, which makes the infrastructure needed for AI development
prohibitively expensive for startups.
It hurts small companies, but it also prevents American businesses and
consumers from accessing globally competitive, low-cost infrastructure.
America is essentially taxing its own innovation.
More concerningly, framing AI as nationalist competition pushes us toward
weaponization rather than problem-solving.
Instead of using AI to address climate change, cure diseases, or expand human
knowledge, we risk creating competing camps where smaller nations must choose
sides and global challenges remain unsolved.
The proposed removal of safety guardrails while demanding ideological
neutrality creates a different but equally problematic form of control. True
innovation requires both responsible development and diverse perspectives,
and this cannot be achieved through prescriptive mandates from any
government.
We need digital internationalism
The vision should be about plurality in use cases, where everyone has access
to the highest levels of AI technology tailored to their values and needs.
This will strengthen humanity's collective capability to solve our greatest
challenges.
Resilience comes from diversitymultiple pathways, multiple contributors,
multiple visions working in parallel. We need international governance
frameworks that reflect global values, not just those of dominant powers. AI
affects everyone, so its development and governance should reflect this
global stakeholder community.
Just as importantly, we must solve the economic challenge that has long
plagued open-source development: creating sustainable financial models that
reward contributors.
We need to ensure developers who contribute to humanity's shared AI
infrastructure can build careers and companies around that work so that the
best minds are rewarded for their work in open development rather than being
pulled exclusively into closed corporate labs.
The fact of the matter is that open-source AI will win regardless of what any
government decides. The combined innovative power of millions of global
developers will always outpace any closed system, no matter how well-funded.
We're already seeing this with open frameworks outperforming proprietary
systems.
History shows that countries trying to control transformative technologies
through closure and protectionism get left behind. The real victory comes
from building technology that serves humanity's needs while maintaining the
openness that drives innovation.
Leadership happens best through championing the collaborative spirit that has
always been the true source of technological progress.
This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel
where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry
today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not
necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in
contributing find out more here:
https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro
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