> Your statement was about what you think America can do, but not about what it has proven to do already.

Sorry that's nonsense. You can't simultaneously project a hypothetical Chinese capability that it hasn't proven it can do (develop the leading models) and then deny the ability of the US to do the same.

> China's clones already won.

Ok we'll just copy their stuff then who cares because apparently bleeding edge model development doesn't matter.

> Does it?

Yes - it proves that leading edge American AI companies can develop products sophisticated enough that they deliver true competitive advantages that have to be guarded. It's like, the thing is so valuable you can't even buy it. Have you ever tried to buy a Ferrari or Lamborghini or something? It's a bit like that.

> Some great consolation that would be, if you said the same thing for Enron, Theranos, Vision Pro, Meta Quest, Microsoft Groove, Google+, Juicero, Hololens... why, you could be convinced to buy any of history's most dogshit technology. Remember, an appeal to authority is just one third of effective rhetoric.

Well if you want to go that route, China will collapse because all communist governments in history except China (and I guess North Korea but that's arguable more of a monarchy of sorts) have failed. Guess that means China loses!

The broader point is you and others are simply saying things, while incredibly smart people with trillions of dollars at stake are doing things counter to your claims. Of course authority isn't a great argument, but considering you haven't provided any sort of economic model that says Google will completely fail at its AI ambitions because idk some Chinese companies released some open source models, leaves us with not a lot of options to go on. Might as well trust the folks with money at stake and who are doing the real work. Why would I trust your comment over Google's business decisions? Yea they could be wrong, it doesn't mean it isn't the right choice at the time.

It's similar to vaccine risk that sprung up during COVID-19. Folks thought they were making an informed decision by eschewing the vaccine in favor of some unknown and unknowable risk instead of the risk that's right there in front of them and known.

> In a so-called free market, that's the most heretical and counterintuitive solution that you can concoct.

But it happened so I'm not sure what to tell you. You yourself have demonstrated that. The free-market can still exists while also being regulated by the government. Evidence? Look around. Separately to claim that the US is losing because it is requiring AI companies to do some sort of thing would also have to apply to China who is doing the same.

> At that point, America might as well forfeit to save money that would have been wasted on "AGI" research graft.

Well, if you're right we should save money and make China spend all of their money building models and then we'll just copy their strategy.

I'm not sure why you and others seem to assume that China (or Iran or whomever) can take some action and that we can't also take some action in response. Let me guess, hypersonic missiles! Iran closed the Strait!? Chinese AI open source?! It's all the same version of a failed mental model. A similar one would be Americans or other westerns assuming that other countries can't do things or aren't smart enough or don't have the ability to build or engineering better things than we can. You're making that exact same mistake here.