{"id":331177,"date":"2026-09-18T07:57:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T07:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=331177"},"modified":"2026-09-20T07:50:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T07:50:41","slug":"whoever-wins-ai-wins-everything-is-just-stupid-talking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=331177","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhoever wins AI wins everything\u201d is just stupid talking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hua Bin \u2013 Substack.com Sept 17, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

There has been a torrent of shocking headlines around AI in the past 2 weeks:<\/p>\n

– Nvidia\u2019s Jensen Huang declared on Sept 6 that \u201cAGI has arrived<\/em>\u201d following the release of OpenAI\u2019s GPT-6 Astra model.<\/p>\n

Sam Altman himself was somewhat more modest, projecting OpenAI only expects to reach the AGI milestone by end of the year<\/p>\n

– A former researcher at Anthropic and OpenAI wrote on Sept 8 on his social media account \u201cThe people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

The previously unknown account received over a hundred million views within days.<\/p>\n

When someone says it aloud \u201cthis is not a marketing stunt\u201d, typically it is exactly that.<\/p>\n

The claim was quickly backed by Evan Hubinger, Anthropic\u2019s Alignment Science lead with his own sensational forecast: \u201cIt is > 10% chance of human extinction within the next decade\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

– Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, wrote an essay on Sept 12 titled \u201cWe must pace the frontier\u201d, urging AI labs to slow down AI scaling and improvement, ostensibly for \u201csafety\u201d concerns.<\/p>\n

He was seconded hours later by Altman and Elon Musk, who owns xAI.<\/p>\n

Never one to be left out of a hot topic he himself barely understands, Don Trump immediately resorted to his own social media and proclaimed on Sept 13 –<\/p>\n

\u201cwe\u2019re leading China in AI. We\u2019re the most sophisticated country in the world. And frankly, I want to keep it that way, because <\/em>whoever wins AI wins<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t done with the subject. September 14 saw more of his \u201cgolden nuggets of tech wisdom\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Then on Sept 15, he shouted:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only control or \u2018guardrails\u2019 that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Exactly the kind of bullshit to expect from a stupid stupid low-IQ idiot.<\/p>\n

Of course, one can only speculate the true motivations of the industry insiders\u2019 crying wolf.<\/p>\n

David Sachs, Trump\u2019s former \u201cAI Tsar\u201d, said in his All-In podcast that the posture taken by Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI is most likely grandstanding in order to \u2013<\/p>\n

1) ban Chinese open-source open-weight AI;<\/p>\n

2) regulatory capture so they can set the rules and lock out small start-ups and later entrants;<\/p>\n

3) hype their upcoming IPOs.<\/p>\n

Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University, coined the term doom trolling<\/em><\/strong> to describe the fearmongering by AI labs.<\/p>\n

Anthropic is especially infamous for sensational and insincere warnings about AI safety that actually serve its own interests such as attracting investment, deterring competition, and misleading regulators on hypothetical future risks rather than present harm.<\/p>\n

Thinking people should put such doom sayers and catastrophe rhetoric in the right context.<\/p>\n

Just like Sachs said in his podcast, \u201cif your product is unsafe, it\u2019s your problem to fix. Why stop everyone else?\u201d<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s put aside the validity and rationale of the AI doomsday claims and the posturing by Big AI. Let\u2019s just examine Trump\u2019s hyperbolic claim \u201cwhoever wins AI wins everything<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s approach his claim from several angles \u2013<\/p>\n

– What has the US \u201cwon\u201d from its lead in AI since ChatGPT was first released in November 2022?<\/p>\n

– What can AI do and not do? What does AI lead really translate into?<\/p>\n

– Who is best positioned to \u201cwin\u201d in the long run?<\/p>\n

Track record of US\u2019s 4-year AI lead<\/strong><\/h3>\n

There is no controversy to say the US and China are the main contenders in AI development.<\/p>\n

There is also consensus that although China has closed the gap significantly over the last few years, the US frontier models are still ahead of Chinese ones by a few months or a few percentage points, depending on how you measure.<\/p>\n

The authoritative Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) 2026 AI Index Report<\/em> highlighted this:<\/p>\n

The US outspent China 23-to-1 in private AI investment in 2025 ($286 billion vs. $12 billion) and holds a 2.7% capability edge at the software frontier.<\/p>\n

By these metrics, the US is winning for now. But, so what?<\/p>\n

Has the US translated the \u201cAI lead\u201d over the last 4 years into any tangible results and superior outcome in any area of significance?<\/p>\n

For example, has the US closed its gap in the EV industry vs. China? Has the US improved its ship building capacity? Has AI helped fix its crumbling infrastructure?<\/p>\n

Has the US used AI to overcome its lack of surge capacity for missile interceptor production for the war against Iran?<\/p>\n

Has the US used AI to make better decisions such as not going to war with Iran since it cannot keep the Hormuz open? Did AI predict it would lose to Iran? How did AI help with winning the war?<\/p>\n

Despite its AI lead for the last 4 years, the US has a worsening domestic homeless problem, housing shortage, wealth inequality, a more polarized society, and a more dysfunctional political system.<\/p>\n

Its \u201cAI leadership\u201d has not translated into falling gas price, a single mile of highspeed rail, lower inflation, a cure for cancer, or any improvement in infrastructure and education.<\/p>\n

Palantir\u2019s military AI program, Maven, was blamed by Pentagon itself for providing \u201cwrong targeting\u201d data that led to the \u201ctriple-tapping\u201d missile attacks on the Minab girl school on the opening day of the illegal war.<\/p>\n

In essence, the top US military AI system facilitated a war crime at its very debut. Way to go.<\/p>\n

Rather than creating wide-spread prosperity and improved standard of living, there are numerous public backlashes by local communities against data centers that suck up local supply of electricity and water.<\/p>\n

I challenge you to name one industry that its \u201cAI lead\u201d has helped the US competitiveness versus its arch-rival China.<\/p>\n

Similarly, China also has not managed to use its considerable AI prowess to create an EUV machine and solve its semiconductor bottleneck.<\/p>\n

At least so far, it seems \u201cwinning AI\u201d has not delivered much.<\/p>\n

What AI can and cannot do & what winning AI really means<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Despite its less than impressive track record to date, no doubt AI is indeed a transformative general purpose technology (GPT).<\/p>\n

There is no question AI can be used to increase productivity, accelerate innovation, and improve human well-being if used properly.<\/p>\n

But there are clear boundaries around what AI can and cannot do.<\/p>\n

For example, AI agents can help programmers code faster and put together a travel itinerary more efficiently than a human.<\/p>\n

But at the same time, AI cannot help you build a high-voltage transformer needed to generate electricity to power AI. AI cannot deliver kilowatt hours or build a house for you.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hear how an AI chatbot itself (Google Gemini) answers the question: \u201cwhat AI can and cannot do? And what does winning AI translate into?\u201d<\/p>\n

To strip away the marketing hype and look at this technology through a strictly clinical lens, we have to separate digital data processing from physical execution.<\/em><\/p>\n

The value of an AI lead does not translate into magical creation or physical dominance. Instead, it translates into a hyper-accelerated <\/em>optimization, prediction, and automation engine<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Part 1: What AI Can and Cannot Do<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

The easiest way to understand AI\u2019s limits is to look at the transition from information to matter:<\/em><\/p>\n

What AI CAN Do (Digital Amplification)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n