AI World Inches Toward "Geopolitical Ceilings"
When innovation threatens global power
China has announced what can only be described as the biggest national security crisis in America’s modern-history: it has developed an AI model equal to Mythos, the frontier system from Anthropic, that was effectively banned outside the US.
Why does this matter?
Last week, a ranking US senator revealed that Mythos hacked “almost” the entire National Security Agency (NSA). Yes, read that again. Mythos was able to identify (and potentially exploit) vulnerabilities across one of America’s most important intelligence agencies. This is why America banned access to Mythos. If Mythos landed in the hands of US adversaries, it would be a cyber security nightmare.
Yet, if China is to be believed, America’s ban is not the end of the road.
China now has an AI system that can replicate Mythos.
My hunch: China has had this system for a while, and is only now unveiling it at a strategic geopolitical moment.
At the tactical level, this raises the probability of a hack unlike anything the world has seen so far. If China’s AI model can also “break” the cyber security architecture of Western intelligence agencies, government ministries, and private sector organizations, nothing is secret. Remember in 2014 when the FBI warned that every large American businesses had already been hacked by China. China’s latest AI breakthrough could put that on steroids.
However, at a more strategic level, the world is inching toward a new model for global trade: geopolitical ceilings.
The US, China, and others, may refuse to give “others” access to their most coveted innovations because of what they could unleash: a loss in power and control.
This is counter to the post-1945 behavior, where governments, particularly Washington, used innovation as a vehicle to drive global power (i.e., the more the world became hooked on Twitter, iPods, and the Internet, the deeper the world integrated into the US architecture).
But now, what is looming are ceilings - effectively innovation limits - determined by the geopolitical climate.
The rise of “geopolitical ceilings” that ban the export of innovations, or throttle them for the global marketplace, changes how the global economy functions.
Most organizations have grown in a world of “pay-to-play.” If they had the resources, they could access any technology, platform, or system. Yet, what is looming now is inaccessibility regardless of price/cost because of geopolitics.
American businesses may have access to sophisticated AI tools that everybody else outside the US does not have. This is more than a trade wall. This is a strategic disadvantage, on the back of geopolitics and AI. And if the US and China introduce geopolitical ceilings, so too, India, Russia, Japan, Israel, and the EU will too. Few may give full access out of fear of emboldening their competitors and adversaries.
The new way to build global power may be to close off innovations, not open them up. This is an inversion, fueled by geopolitical insecurity.
And the outcome is a global fracturing in economic productivity and business competition. Origin now matters more than ever. Originate from the “right” nation, and gain the power to rule. Originate from the “wrong” nation, and face defeat before the game has even begun.
Have questions or ideas? Let’s talk: abishur at mrgeopolitics dot com
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