The Myth of Winning the AI Race: U.S. vs China, Hype vs Reality, Jobs vs Replacement or the Future vs Extinction?

Side Notes... Thoughts on modern technology and the future of things...

Jun 18, 2025

Lately, I’ve been watching a steady stream of videos on artificial intelligence. Much of the discourse centers around a single question, “Who will win the AI race?” The more I listen to the hope and the hype, the pro AI technorati and the anti-AI rebels, the more the phrase “Win the AI race” makes less and less sense to me.

If you are new to this ongoing AI debate, here are two videos that can bring you up to speed on all things AI. Why are these videos worth watching? Because it is important to have a foundational understanding of AI technology and how it works in order to grasp what it is, what it is not and what it may mean for the entirety of humanity.

Video 1: “You Don’t Understand AI Until You Watch This”

Video 2: “ChatGPT Explained Completely”

So, what does it really mean to “Beat China” in AI? Does it mean achieving AGI before they do? Is it about integrating AI more deeply into the structures of society, from defense to governance to commerce? Is “Beating China” about technological superiority and market dominance? Or is it about which civilization manages to align AI more closely with its values?

That brings me to a deeper question one I don’t hear often enough: what are we actually trying to solve for with AI? Is the goal? Intelligence itself, or the extension of human intention through machines? If so, what intention and to what end? Whose values are being trained and encoded into these models not just technically, but morally, culturally, politically, and yes, spiritually? What happens when those values diverge across and within nations?

We’re not just building tools we’re building digital mirrors. AI reflects our goals, fears, and blind spots back at us, amplified. The race isn’t just about machines thinking faster. It’s about whether we can guide that thinking toward something worth achieving and that adds to the overall human project for evolving, finding meaning and most importantly our survival and longevity as a species. We are spending trillions to be the first to “Win the AI race,” but again, what are we trying to solve for? Power, profit, or survival?

Winning the AI race shouldn’t simply mean being first to market, it should mean being right or at the very least more so than our rivals. Whoever wins this race will determine how we define intelligence going forward and whether we embed AI with the values of human dignity, freedom, and responsibility or control, surveillance, and suppression.

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