%% ### #todo - [ ] Read "[Winner Takes Most](https://avc.com/2015/10/winner-takes-most/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email)" article %% The advancement and proliferation of new technologies has seemingly contradictory effects on the distribution of power: It both reinforces existing power structures and creates shifts towards new ones.^[Suleyman, 2023] **Concentration and centralization**: - **Corporations**: Today, the largest companies own a massive share of global wealth: The combined revenues of the Fortune 500 make up 44 percent of world GDP.^[Ibid] They also control the largest clusters of computer chips, the best models, and the majority of robotics capacity. This results in a major competitive advantage over others. The coming wave likely further exacerbates this concentration of power and wealth in an elite group of private corporations. Their ability to deploy massive amounts of resources to develop frontier technologies will enable them to tap into compounding returns on intelligence. - **Nation-states**: Emerging technologies grant the power to capture and act on societal data at an unprecedented scale. This might tip some nation-states towards totalitarian surveillance and control. A totalitarian state would be able to predict social outcomes and also steer them into a direction it deems desirable. - **Individuals**: People who are willing and able to experiment with new technologies might be able to radically alter and enhance their biology, leading to a significant gap in intelligence within society. This could result in a "biohacking personal enhancement arms race."^[Ibid, p. 250] - In general, there might be significant [Matthew effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect), whereby those actors that are most powerful and wealthy today stand to gain the most additional power and wealth from the coming wave of technological innovations. **Dispersion and fragmentation**: - **Tribes**: The proliferation of cheap and powerful technologies could empower sub-state actors and lead to a massive dispersion of power. Groups at smaller scales could become largely self-sufficient and independent of large national structures, allowing them to live on their own terms. This might move us back to a time before large nation states, with a medieval patchwork of polities, enhanced by 21st century technology. - **Openness**: Research progress and breakthroughs often become accessible to the wider public, both intentionally and accidentally. Frontier AI models get into the hands of anyone who wants them. The costs to adopting new technologies go down rapidly. Everyone can copy and imitate what works. The result is a massive democratization and fragmentation of power. These opposing forces will pose major [[Containment of emerging technologies requires strong nation-states and cohesive societies at a time when they are fragile and divided|challenges to nation-states]] and their capacity to manage emerging technologies. --- Topics: - [[The AI Revolution and the Tapestry of Tomorrow (Index)]] Related notes: - [[The "Coming Wave" is an emerging cluster of technologies centered on AI and synthetic biology]] - [[Increased intelligence means increased power]] - [[Artificial intelligence leads to massive empowerment]]