The International AI Arms Race: The Winning Strategy

Not data, nor compute nor algorithms will win the International AI Arms Race. The Digital Homestead Act is winning strategy to leverage AI to win the future in the US.

Meta was accused of “intellectual AI war crimes” for using and being open to redistributing copyrighted content. At the end of the day, all companies involved in AI are doing this. It’s an interesting turn-about from the days where activists rallied around cries of information wanting to be free. In the end it’s not about what information wants, it’s about who captures what value from the work people put into making information.

It’s also about the work of making value from manipulating information. While some see AI as the end of human work, that’s not going to be the case in the foreseeable future. I use AI myself in the course of programming, designing, and troubleshooting complex computer systems. AI is not ready to take my job yet, but it does make it easier. A 2022 study from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis attempting to understand the value of data found that data itself is hard to value because in the end, it is people that are required to make value out of data.

Yes, the people whose work was appropriated should be compensated; however, the more significant issue for society is this. As these works become the basis for future works, the need for humans to work dries up. The value of work is captured in the people who run the AI models. This impacts not just the authors whose work was used but all future potential authors as well. It’s akin to paying off student loans but not addressing the cost of higher education and the predatory practices of companies giving loans.

So what can we do to keep an economy running. We need to provide meaningful work for people to earn a living and live a satisfying life. UBI alone won't fill the void of meaning even if we solve the need for material goods. One suggestion I'm thinking more about is Sam Altman's Universal Basic Compute, or as I like to call it, a Digital Homestead Act.

“Vote yourself a Farm” was the campaign slogan of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He won and followed through with the Homestead Act of 1862 but that slogan touting western expansion had little to do with sucession and war that dominated his presidency.

The Homestead Act was enacted in 1862 under President Abraham Lincoln. It allowed American citizens to claim 160 acres of free land in the Western United States by settling on it and improving it for a period of time. It provided a meaningful way for people to earn their keep. It also contributed significantly to the settlement of the American West.

Like Universal Basic Income people would be granted some amount of compute to forge their destiny. Yes, AI will do amazing things for us, but we can learn from the arc of history in computer chess engines.

Once chess engines beat human chess masters, there was no looking back; dominance was complete. However, a new game known as advanced chess, cyborg chess, or centaur chess was developed.

No Global Thermonuclear War for me, I just ate.

In cyborg chess, a human is paired with an AI engine. This combination is much better than chess engines by themselves. The same hybrid concept will be true for a long time to come with AI in most applications.

We need AI to solve problems, build our virtual landscapes, and help us expand into the universe. But AI needs us in the mix to do that as best as possible. A Digital Homestead Act or Universal Basic Compute could be the vehicle to enable a more secure future for all of us. The AI arms race will dictate which nations will win and which will lose the future. It's not nations that build the best AI that will win, but the ones that figure out how to use it best to secure the best outcomes for their cause..

To that end, I say I'm willing to cut some slack for our teams (OpenAI, Meta, Google) as long as they work to find a way to leverage their spoils for the greater good of all of us.

Further Reading

Data Is Not Oil, Bacon, or Gold: An Actual Measure of Data as an Asset

https://itif.org/publications/2023/04/03/data-is-not-oil-bacon-or-gold-an-actual-measure-of-data-as-an-asset/

“Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right”: Meta emails unsealed

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/meta-torrented-over-81-7tb-of-pirated-books-to-train-ai-authors-say/