It's Time to Move Past AI Nationalism

In 2025, there will be a course correction in AI and geopolitics, as world leaders increasingly understand that their national interests are best served through the promise of a more positive and cooperative future. The post-ChatGPT years in AI discourse could be characterized as somewhere between a gold rush and a moral panic. In 2023, at the same time as there was record investment in AI, tech experts, including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, published an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, while others compared AI to a "nuclear war" and a "pandemic." This has understandably clouded the judgment of political leaders, pushing the geopolitical conversation about AI into some disturbing places. At the AI & Geopolitics Project, my research organization at Cambridge University, our analysis clearly shows the increasing trend towards AI nationalism.