Chinese leadership might not be convinced by AI extinction risks. However, they might agree to a slowdown deal if they realize the US compute advantage is insurmountable in the short term. The deal offers them a chance to catch up on algorithms via transparency, avoiding a default loss.

Dario Amadei's call to stop selling advanced chips to China is a strategic play to control the pace of AGI development. He argues that since a global pause is impossible, restricting China's hardware access turns a geopolitical race into a more manageable competition between Western labs like Anthropic and DeepMind.

The call to slow down AI development isn't just a safety measure; it's a strategic recognition by major labs that their era of solely dictating the pace of innovation is over. This proposal represents an opening bid in a broader negotiation about the future of AI governance.

The US and USSR, despite being adversaries, collaborated to prevent nuclear proliferation to rogue actors. A similar model can be applied to AI. The US and China share an interest in preventing powerful open-weight models from being used for cyber-attacks or bio-terrorism by third parties, creating a foundation for a safety dialogue.

A purely cooperative approach to AI arms control with China is unlikely to work due to their inherent skepticism. A more effective realpolitik strategy may be for the U.S. to advance its AI capabilities so far and fast that China feels compelled to negotiate out of self-interest to avoid being hopelessly behind.

The unstated reason AI labs are appealing to the US government to "pace" development is that only a government can handle the necessary international diplomacy. The labs recognize that any meaningful slowdown is futile without China's participation, making the letter an implicit request for the US to initiate a global, coordinated agreement.

A common argument against an AI development pause is that China wouldn't agree. However, since China is currently behind in the AI race, a pause is strategically beneficial for them as it stops the leader from extending their lead. This counterintuitive point suggests a pause is more geopolitically feasible than often assumed.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's writing proposes using an AI advantage to 'make China an offer they can't refuse,' forcing them to abandon competition with democracies. The host argues this is an extremely reckless position that fuels an arms race dynamic, especially when other leaders like Google's Demis Hassabis consistently call for international collaboration.

The fact that Chinese lab ZAI is mirroring Anthropic's staged release model for powerful AI reveals shared underlying safety concerns. This independent alignment in behavior provides "fertile ground" and a common basis for potential US-China bilateral agreements on managing dangerous AI capabilities, despite geopolitical tensions.