Often I see people claim it's essential for America to win the AI race against China (in whatever sense) for reasons like these:

“What is the reason we want America to win the AI race? It's because we want to make sure free open societies can defend themselves” (Alec Stapp)
“We should seek to win the race to global AI technological superiority and ensure that China does not… to ensure that our way of life is not displaced by the much darker Chinese vision“ (Marc Andreessen)
“Will it be one in which the United States and allied nations advance a global AI that spreads the technology's benefits and opens access to it, or an authoritarian one, in which nations or movements that don’t share our values use AI to cement and expand their power?” (Sam Altman)
“In Machines of Loving Grace, I discussed the possibility that authoritarian governments might use powerful AI to surveil or repress their citizens in ways that would be extremely difficult to reform or overthrow. Current autocracies are limited in how repressive they can be by the need to have humans carry out their orders, and humans often have limits in how inhumane they are willing to be. But AI-enabled [...]

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First published:
March 21st, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/m4vLvzEMAqw5swPYN/china-derangement-syndrome-1

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“China Derangement Syndrome” by Arjun Panickssery