Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

by Brad Smith

As we met with members of Congress in Washington, DC, a few senators mentioned that they had read the advance galleys sent to them for a new book called AI Superpowers. Its author, Kai-Fu Lee, is a former executive at Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Born in Taiwan, he is now a leading venture capitalist based in Beijing. His argument is sobering. He asserts that “the AI world order will combine winner-take-all economics with an unprecedented concentration of wealth in the hands of a few companies in China and the United States.”1 As he puts it, “other countries will be left to pick up the scraps.”2 What’s the basis for this view? Mostly it comes down to the power of data. The argument is that the firm that gains the most users will gain the most data, and because data is rocket fuel for AI, its AI product will become stronger as a result. With a stronger AI product, the firm will attract even more users and hence more data. The cycle will continue with returns to scale, so that eventually this firm will crowd out everyone else in the market. According to Kai-Fu, “AI naturally gravitates toward monopolies . . . once a company has jumped out to an early lead, this kind of ongoing repeating cycle can turn that lead into an insurmountable barrier to entry for other firms.”3