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The Rest Is Politics: Leading

188. Will AI Give China or the US Total Power? (William MacAskill)

The Rest Is Politics: Leading

Goalhanger

News, Government, Politics

4.63.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2026

⏱️ 68 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Could artificial intelligence hand the US or China 99% of global economic and military power? What happens when millions of autonomous weapons systems are controlled by a single commander-in-chief? Has effective altruism's influence in Silicon Valley accelerated or slowed the race for artificial general intelligence? Alastair and Rory are joined by William MacAskill to discuss all this and more. __________ Search IG.com to find out more and/or Look for IG in your app store. You can purchase William MacAskill's book Doing Good Better here. __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: therestispolitics@goalhanger.com __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen Exec Producer: Chris Sawyer General Manager: Tom Whiter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:04.9

receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets.

0:09.4

Just go to therestispolities.com. That's therestispolities.com.

0:14.3

It's reasonably likely that a single country ends up with 99% of the world economic and military power.

0:20.0

99%. Yeah, or more, essentially.

0:22.3

Despite all of the hype around AI, I think people are under appreciating the risks.

0:26.7

You could have a world where you have a military consisting of millions of autonomous weapons

0:31.7

controlled by a single person, you know, in the US, the commander-in-chief, the most intense

0:35.6

concentration of power the world's ever seen.

0:37.8

The US could just say, okay, we're just going to go it alone.

0:41.5

And then at that point, all other countries are just locked out of most economic power.

0:45.7

And that would be sufficient for total hegemony over the world.

0:49.0

Which of the two current commanders-in-chief of the two biggest militaries,

0:52.5

Xi Jinping and Trump, who is winning that race?

0:56.7

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1:01.0

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