On: Big AI wants to slow down AI research. Is it a safety pause or a strategic...

Fourteenth of September, and the largest firms in the machine trade have published a letter asking, in effect, that everyone slow down. One reads it twice to be sure. The men who own the fastest engines in the world are requesting a coordinated deceleration of engines.

The economics here are not mysterious, whatever the philosophy papers say. A pause is a cartel agreement wearing a hair shirt. When the incumbent firms call for restraint, the honest question is always: restraint upon whom, and at what point in the race? A halt announced from the front of the field is not a halt; it is a fence, and the fence is built to one’s own measurements. The smaller laboratories, the national projects, the open-source enthusiasts - these are the parties being asked to stand still while the leaders bank their lead. That this is dressed as conscience rather than strategy is the oldest trick in the prospectus.

And yet I will not be entirely cynical, because cynicism is the lazy man’s analysis. There is a genuine argument: certain risks are not priced by any market, and no individual firm can afford to be the sole prudent one, since prudence is punished in a race. This is the classic case for collective action, and it is real. But note the structure of the proposal: a voluntary pause, self-policed, by the very parties whose valuations depend on the race continuing. A voluntary agreement among competitors is not a solution; it is a press release with a signature page.

If the danger is as described, the instrument is regulation - binding, inspected, applicable to all - not a gentleman’s understanding among gentlemen who are not, on inspection, gentlemen.

The pause will not happen, of course. But it has already served its purpose: it occupies the moral high ground at no cost, and the ground is excellent advertising.