The AI investment can only repay itself if governments make powerful AI a privilege.
Regulate it like weapons. Ordinary people get cutlery. Be good enough and you might get a licence for a single shot firearm. Government agencies get automatic weapons. Favoured countries get nukes.
Then whoever controls access gets to charge rent on everyone else’s productivity. Every business, every worker, every useful thing you do becomes another opportunity to collect a fee.
That’s the trap: promising a future of abundance, then making abundance illegal without a subscription.
Regulate it like weapons. Ordinary people get cutlery. Be good enough and you might get a licence for a single shot firearm. Government agencies get automatic weapons. Favoured countries get nukes.
Then whoever controls access gets to charge rent on everyone else’s productivity. Every business, every worker, every useful thing you do becomes another opportunity to collect a fee.
That’s the trap: promising a future of abundance, then making abundance illegal without a subscription.