GDP is subtle broken in many ways

A "in general" correlates with geopolitical power doesn't necessary mean you can point at a specific case look at their GDP and come to a good conclusion. Especially not if it's as much of a special case as China.

> wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers?

which might actually happen. If the US falls further from grace and the situations stays like that for a few decades, or the US and another huge power (e.g. China) fall into some costly conflict then India or a union of African countries have a serious chance to become a world super power.

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=> But more relevantly this discussion is going into red hering argument direction:

- No one argued that you should go _only_ by population, the argument is, that if a country with a gigantic population shrinks hugely they still have enough people left to wage large scale wars.

- Similar no one (should) argue that GDP is by itself meaningful for such an assessment, it's one imperfect not supper reliable statistical point. Especially given how things move wrt. dark factories (i.e. fully automated => no light one as no human there), AI and similar. Yes, if GDP is supper low or high that says a lot, but a lot is not everything and a average GDP for decade long trends in a word looking to face a major time of change means not much in any direction.

- Similar we are speaking about decade long developments, current military strength ist also just another non fully reliable indicator. E.g. Germany post WW1 had close to actual 0/no military strength, and then there was WW2 just a few years later...

> wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers?

Conventionally, a continent isn't a superpower. A country is.

Africa is not a country.

AI is purely a virtual world play. It may (or may not) make it easier to write code, reply to emails or Slack messages or create PowerPoint presentations. In the real world what matters are energy, natural resources and making (manufacturing) things.

AI will not make it easier to build a house, to harvest a corn field, to assemble a car. AI will not improve weather forecasting accuracy- this is already pretty much 99.999% solved. So AI will not improve standards of living.

All this to conclude that China’s standards of living will improve while America’s will stagnate (or worse)

But sure, go ahead and enjoy those AI videos-some of them are even funny.

>>US government is working overtime to make sure legacy technologies stay around while the rest of the world is investing into the future.

>"Rest of the world"? Europe isn't even a player in the AI race.

I think the legacy technology he is referring to is the more about the electrical generation method rather than the AI use of that electricity.

> claims it won't be a world power at all:

which is very much possible

50 years once just a blink in human history is today enough to have 2 major industrial revolutions

nukes are not an argument for anything but main land defense from invasions

Look Russia, it was considered on of the most powerful countries military wise and cleanly in the top 10 economically. Many treated it as a 3rd place behind USA/China. It probably will be neither military nor economically overly relevant in 10 years. Through comparing a war economy with peace economies by most normal usable standards (e.g. GDP) isn't very meaningful. Yes it has nukes, no one will invade it (in a traditional large scale sense out side of some border conflict). But it's economy looks like the kind of war economy which leads to a complete economical collapse once the war ends (i.e. burning core substance) end while it's military could be very experienced now, by treating soldiers as highly disposable its unclear how much that actually is true.

Now look at the US, it has lost the majority of soft power thanks to incompetence (and it was maybe the nation with the most effective soft power). It has alienated most of it's allies, especially it's closest allies. Both from a military and economical POV. It's highly dependent on China, and tries to change that have shown very mid to bad outcomes. On the other hand China is increasingly less dependent on it (and the EU) and increasingly less attackable by sea blockades and other non-hot war counter measures the US had. It's behind on automated production. Countries are increasingly less willing to tolerate US bases on their ground which are essential for it being able to project power. The economy is increasingly dependent on a few pillars, which are strong but can crack anyway. The might claim AI leadership, but practically it looks like the price they payed to get there is one which not only will not pay of but can not pay off, it's just way to high. War is also increasingly going back to ways where even if you have superiority the cost of waging it is still severely high, in such a situation you can't force leadership by military force, if you try it likely will end similar to Germany in WW1. Lastly the internal instability Trump has brought by dismantling checks and balances and arbitrary gutting of programs which turned out pretty essential for stability is bad enough to argue things like a putsch series or civil war being _realistic possibilities_ (not guaranteed at all, but possible where it wasn't realistically possible before).

If you put everything together the US dropping temporary out of the top 10 of overall most powerful countries is, not very likely but, very much possible.

It does have absurd geographical advantages, and nukes to make sure it keeps them basically for ever (as long as it doesn't splinter which isn't very likely tbh.). So the drop would be most likely be temporary at most.

Still it is possible, it's the price to pay for first squandering all trust/goodwill gained from WW2 over a few decades of greedy, egoistic, egocentric, ethical catastrophic politics. And then going complete "unpredictable, untrustable, instabile, high risk, publicly considering to start war with NATO or at least half of the EU (JEF+some others)" in recent years.