Nationalize AI - Part 5 - Superiority

This is Part 5 in a multipart series on nationalizing AI:

• Nationalize AI - Part 1 - Defining The Problem
• Nationalize AI - Part 2 - Labor
• Nationalize AI - Part 3 - Corporate Power
• Nationalize AI - Part 4 - Inefficient
• Nationalize AI - Part 5 - Superiority
• Nationalize AI - Part 6 - Conclusion

Superiority

Throughout history, moments of intense competition have driven humanity to achieve extraordinary feats, often under the shadow of immense pressure and high stakes. These races—whether against time, an adversary, or nature itself (often all three)—are marked by innovation, sacrifice, and moral complexity.

They reveal the lengths to which nations and individuals will go to gain an advantage or secure survival, even when the cost is extraordinary. Here are three such defining moments that changed the course of history.

The Space Race

On October 4, 1957, a crisp autumn evening, the Soviet Union sent shockwaves through the world, and through history, by launching Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. As its beeping signal echoed from orbit, the Space Race was born, a battle between superpowers to dominate the cosmos.

Four years later, in 1961, the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave Earth’s bounds, orbiting the planet aboard Vostok 1. His journey, lasting just 108 minutes, was a triumph for the Soviet Union and a humbling reminder to the United States of the stakes in this cosmic competition.

In 1962, President Kennedy inspired a nation and the world with his bold challenge: “We choose to go to the Moon.” This visionary declaration transformed the Space Race into a daring quest to push the boundaries of human achievement.

The race culminated on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 successfully landed on the Moon. As Neil Armstrong descended the ladder and declared, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” the moment symbolized more than an American victory—it was a triumph for humanity.

The Space Race forever changed our understanding of exploration, turning the impossible into a reality and setting the stage for future journeys into the unknown.

Oppenheimer

On July 16, 1945, in the remote arid deserts of New Mexico, the world changed forever. Under the guidance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project successfully detonated the first atomic bomb in the Trinity test. As the fiery blast lit up the sky, Oppenheimer reflected on a line from Hindu scripture: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

A theoretical physicist with a keen intellect, Oppenheimer led a team of brilliant scientists in a race against time during World War II. Their mission: to harness the atom’s power before Nazi Germany could. The result was a weapon of unimaginable destruction, marking both a triumph of human ingenuity and the dawn of a terrifying new era.

When atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war, Oppenheimer became a symbol of scientific achievement—and its moral complexity.

Enigma

During World War II, the Allies faced a deadly challenge: Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine, a cipher believed to be unbreakable. Decoding it would mean turning the tide of war, but the clock was ticking.

In 1940, Alan Turing and his team at Bletchley Park rose to the task. Through ingenuity and relentless effort, they built a revolutionary machine that unraveled Enigma’s secrets. Their success delivered critical intelligence, saving countless lives and shortening the war.

The race to break Enigma was a triumph of brilliance and determination, fought in silence and secrecy. It stands as a testament to the unseen heroes who shaped the course of history.

The Race to End All Races

All of the aforementioned events were born from intense rivalry, propelled by urgency, and achieved through groundbreaking innovation. They highlight humanity’s capacity to push boundaries under pressure, often at great cost, leaving legacies that reshaped the course of history. Notably, these were not privately run or owned efforts—they were fully centralized, publicly funded, and operated under governmental control to ensure their scope and impact could be effectively managed.

The AI superiority race is larger than all three of these, combined, times a trillion. This is it.

Whichever entity controls artificial superintelligence—assuming it could be controlled at all (a topic for another time 🫡)—will hold unprecedented power. This control would translate into immediate dominance in military strategy, economic systems, political influence, and societal organization.

Additionally, and critically, whoever achieves this feat first, can immediately lock out every other entity in the world from achieving it as well.

Such an entity would dictate the direction of humanity, able to directly and quickly reshape every aspect of life on Earth for all living beings.

This is the last race; there will be no others. Superintelligent AI will be humanity’s final innovation, and its control will determine our survival.

It being so critical to be first to achieve superintelligent AI, resource centralization is imperative. Notably, centralization was also a defining feature of the projects mentioned earlier. It’s obvious we are already investing a lot, federally, in AI already, but the vast majority of the talent and resources are currently in the private sector.

While no entity is perfect, the best choice is one accountable to the people through voting power.

I believe the case is clear - nationalization is necessary for the above reasons.

In the final post of mine, I will briefly recap my arguments and conclude this series on nationalizing AI: Nationalize AI - Part 6 - Conclusion