The end of Nicolás Maduro’s rule in Venezuela along with U.S. threats to Iran shows we are in a new imperial age. This time, it isn’t only about armies, it’s about data. Artificial intelligence is revising our concepts of sovereignty and power, adding an important realm in which two nations dominate: the U.S. and China. The story is still being written, but power is concentrating in these two poles.
Sovereignty here doesn’t mean access to powerful tools or building applications on top of them. It means the ability to design, train, operate, secure and deploy foundational AI systems capable of highly advanced functions in national defense and other sensitive areas of the state without external permission or dependence. By that definition, the field already looks far narrower than most policy debates assume.
Read the full article co-authored with Christopher Ahlberg in The Wall Street Journal.