"one hand behind our back"? We're talking about who's going to be the first to build the thing that might kill all of humanity. Or, even in many of the happier scenarios, the thing which will impoverish and immiserate the vast majority of the population, rendering them permanently subject to the whims of the capital-owning few.
Why is it "our" back? The people who will own these machines do not consider you one of them. The people leading the countries that will use these machines to kill each other's civilians do not consider you one of them. You have far more in common with a Chinese worker than you do with Sam Altman or Jeff Bezos.
And frankly? I think choosing a (say, conservatively, just going off of the estimates Altman and Amodei have made in the past) 20% chance of killing everyone as our first resort is just morally unacceptable. If the US made an effort to halt research and China still kept at it, sure, I won't complain I suppose, but we haven't, and pretending that China is the problem when it's our labs pushing the edge on capabilities -- it's just comedic.
Why is it "our" back? The people who will own these machines do not consider you one of them. The people leading the countries that will use these machines to kill each other's civilians do not consider you one of them. You have far more in common with a Chinese worker than you do with Sam Altman or Jeff Bezos.
And frankly? I think choosing a (say, conservatively, just going off of the estimates Altman and Amodei have made in the past) 20% chance of killing everyone as our first resort is just morally unacceptable. If the US made an effort to halt research and China still kept at it, sure, I won't complain I suppose, but we haven't, and pretending that China is the problem when it's our labs pushing the edge on capabilities -- it's just comedic.