Eric Schmidt's blueprint for US technology strategy

By OscarD🔸 @ 2024-10-15T19:54 (+29)

The Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) is an Eric Schmidt-originated think tank focused on securing a US-led technological future. In May, SCSP published their blueprint for US technology and geopolitical strategy “Vision for Competitiveness: Mid-Decade Opportunities for Strategic Victory". As well as assessing the object-level ideas in the report, it is useful to get more context on what is discussed in fairly mainstream DC policy circles. It is interesting to compare and contrast this document with Aschenbrenner’s “Situational Awareness” (summary here), published afterwards in June. In particular, it makes me think that, while Situational Awareness was probably still quite influential, relatively mainstream Tech/NatSec policy discussions were moving in a similar direction already and independently.

In this post, I just provide a short and then a longer summary of the report, without critical analysis.

Short summary:

• The US can retain, build on, or retake the lead globally in key technological and strategic domains, but this will require careful work.
  • AI in particular will be crucial to economic and military supremacy in the coming decades.
  • As well as AI, the US should seek dominance in five other converging technological areas: biotechnology, advanced networks (5G/6G etc), semiconductors, energy, and advanced manufacturing
• China, along with Russia, Iran and North Korea, form an ‘Axis of Disruptors’ seeking to challenge US power and erode the rules-based international order.
  • In response the US could a) retreat further into isolationism, allowing each of the Disruptors to act with relative impunity, b) continue the half-hearted status quo of partial competition, or c) leverage the US’s full scientific/technological might to become the unrivalled global power. Clearly this report recommends c) :).
• The report provides many recommendations, mostly quite vague/high-level, for how USG can bolster domestic innovation in key sectors, and secure its position geostrategically and militarily.

Introduction

• The report is inspired by the Cold War era ‘NSC-68’ document that outlined a vision of irreconcilable competition between the free and communist worlds.
• The basic precondition for the report is that US-led military, technological, and strategic dominance is imperative.
• AI is of decisive strategic importance. China is seeking to win the AI race not only for international competition, but also to better dominate and control its internal dynamics.
  • The Chinese economy is in bad shape, with a poor recovery from Covid, an ageing and shrinking population, rattled international investors, and high youth unemployment.
  • But these flaws are not so severe as to render China an unserious competitor. Indeed, structural decline could make China more aggressive and dangerous.
• China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are strategically aligned in a new ‘Axis of Disruptors’ to combat US interests and undermine the global order
  • The Axis of Disruption is a marriage of convenience based on ‘my enemy’s enemy’ reasoning more than deep ideological alignment.
    • But military, economic, and diplomatic ties are strengthening.
• “Other nations recognize the transformative potential of AGI for national security, economic prosperity, and global influence, and will undoubtedly strive to be the first to achieve it.”
  • Therefore, the US’s current geopolitical lead is not secure. 2025-30 is a crucial window of opportunity for the US to solidify its dominance.
• The US is founded on, and continues to strive towards, principles of liberty, the rule of law, free markets, and human progress.
  • Political sclerosis is holding us back, we must rejuvenate American technological might.
  • However, the US continues to have the world’s preeminent economy, military, and technology.

Technological Trends

• Open-source models will likely continue to lag behind proprietary models in terms of performance, because of the large training costs of frontier models.
  • Open-sourcing models loses option value, as it cannot be undone later if serious safety concerns arise.
• Market demand and current research directions suggest increasingly agentic AI systems will be created in the coming years, which will thereafter lead to AGI.
• Due to geostrategic competition, “it is imperative that the AGI narrative does not predominantly focus on the risks”.
• The US has succeeded best technologically when it has harnessed government, academic, and corporate know-how together (Manhattan project, space race, internet, Covid vaccines).
  • Building off these historical examples, the US must devote its collective national efforts towards winning the AGI race.
• As well as AI, the US should seek dominance in five other converging technological areas: biotechnology, advanced networks (5G/6G etc), semiconductors, energy, and advanced manufacturing

Vision for Competitiveness

A US-led renewed rules-based, freedom-loving, prosperous world order is both vital and possible. At its core, the US must lead on innovation, and everything else will follow.

There are three possible courses of action for the US:

1. Continuation of the present course
   • Political: Since the 2017 pivot to great power conflict as the dominant US foreign policy frame, there has been laudable continuity between two otherwise divergent administrations, and good progress in international partnership strengthening (e.g. NATO, the Quad).
     1. If the US does not strengthen its deterrence posture, the Axis of Disruptors will continue to slowly chip away at the rules-based world order.
   • Economic: ‘Friend-shoring’ supply chains will bolster security, but at the cost of economic efficiency and growth
   • Military: the US may struggle to fight a large war across several theatres of combat while maintaining adequate supplies.
   • Technological: the US maintains a world-leading tech sector, but has also experienced notable losses, such as in 5G, drones, batteries, and hypersonic missiles.
2. Disengagement and isolation
   • Political: East Asia and Eastern Europe would likely see increased tension and war without the US security guarantee.
   • Economic: US trade and economic strength relies on a strong international presence.
   • Military: a retreat from projecting worldwide military strength would in the long term either lead to the defeat of American interests, or an embarrassing and costly about-face.
   • Technological: R&D is very collaborative, and isolationism would slow down American creativity
3. Mobilization of the technological, economic, and military strength of the Free World
   • An all-out effort now will lay the foundation for a stable future of US-led technological and strategic dominance, and a prosperous and free world.

Blueprint for Strategic Victory

Pillar 1: Reimagining the Endless Frontier

• “Science - The Endless Frontier” was a USG report from 1945 that catalysed a post-war efflorescence of government-funded basic science, which we are still benefiting from.”
• China today is a far more formidable scientific challenger than the USSR was during the Cold War.
• Research today is done in more places by more people, but the government still has an important role in incentivising harder-to-monetise or longer-term research.

Recommendations:

1. Organize American Leadership for National Programs
   • Focus on specific desired ‘moonshots’ and invest heavily in them.
2. Fund a Dynamic and Resilient Innovation Ecosystem
   • The USG budget process is too slow and unwieldy to effectively fund fast-changing scientific priorities, and industry’s incentives are not always aligned with the national interest. Pull mechanism funding may be part of the solution.
3. Build Strategic Public-Private Partnerships for National Technology Strategy
   • These should be spread out across the US, with particular local hubs for different technologies.
4. Modernizing Governance for the Innovation Age
   • Regulations for AI and other emerging technologies should focus only on high-risk cases, and deregulate other use cases.
5. Next-Generation AI and the Path to AGI: Charting the Course for American Leadership
   • USG should:
     1. Analyze what the bottlenecks and barriers to the US developing AGI are, and ease these
     2. Prepare for disruptions to the workforce, education, and political system
     3. Invest in misalignment and misuse risk mitigations
     4. Coordinate on the above with close partners and allies

Related non-AI domains:

1. Pre-Empting Future Threats: Containing Disease with Biotechnology
   • Should create ‘Medshield’ as an early warning system for future biothreats
2. Growing National Connectivity: Deploy Advanced Networks
   • Fast data sharing is key, should invest in 5G and beyond, especially ‘free space optical networks’ (FSONs)
3. Leading a Post-Moore’s Law World: Spearhead Novel Compute Paradigms
   • Focus on quantum, neuromorphic and reversible computing
4. Accelerating Next-Generation Energy: Power Technology with Fusion Energy Grid
   • Energy is key to ~all tech, and fusion is the most promising grand vision
5. Driving Technological Convergence: Accelerate Adoption of Advanced Manufacturing Systems
   • China leads in at-scale traditional manufacturing, US should seek to get ahead on precision manufacturing

Pillar 2: Restore Peace and Security through AI and Emerging Technologies

• While the US’s foreign policy reality does not always live up to our ideals of freedom, democracy, and a rules-based order, we at least acknowledge our shortcomings and seek to improve. But autocracies claim they are perfect and infallible.
• US foreign policy should seek to create and uphold a more liberal international order.

Recommendations:

1. Winning the Global Values Competition: Technological Innovation and Global Platforms as Decisive Advantages
   • Alliance of democracies can gain technological dominance
2. Creating the Next Generation of International Institutions
   • The US should lead the creation of a new set of global institutions, as it did in the post-WW2 era.
3. Focusing on the Next Generation of Strategic Battlegrounds
   • Indo-Pacific especially important
4. Reinvigorating Strategic Communications to Amplify Our Vision
   • Shape the global narrative to be more pro-US
5. Designing a Foreign Policy Instrument of Power for Global Technology Competition
   • Unclear?? Fancy-sounding truisms imo.
6. Testing Calculated Engagement with Disruptors
   • Don’t back down to adversaries

Diplomacy is well and good but should be backed up by hard power

1. Dominating the Spectrum: Agile and Integrated Warfare
   • Increasingly, different domains of war will be interconnected, and advanced information capabilities will be key for command and control
2. Mastering the Machine: Technological Supremacy in the Age of AI
   • The private sector has outspent and out-innovated USG in many military-relevant domains (AI, bio, space), and USG needs to refocus on new technology.
3. Innovation as Armor: Fortifying Deterrence
   • Advanced tech will put off would-be adversaries.
4. The Crucible of Talent: Cultivating the Warriors and Innovators of Tomorrow
   • Need to offer higher pay and flexible arrangements to attract top tech talent to the military

Intelligence community:

1. Enhancing Techno-Economic Intelligence
   • IC should refocus more attention on less military-oriented analysis and more on trying to protect US IP and trade secrets, and monitoring/stealing those of other countries
2. Protect Against Foreign Malign Influence
   • Should establish a central body to prevent and respond to disinformation, election-tampering and other foreign campaigns, including collaborating with allies.
3. Expand the Use of Open Source Intelligence
   • Currently, these capabilities are distributed across the IC; they should be centralised and streamlined

Build the Next Generation of Alliances

1. Design and Build a New Architecture of Alliances
   • Should support democracy and human rights movements in allies, but also within the people of adversary nations
   • Closer cooperation with defence partners, especially in procurement and innovation
   • Showcase an attractive alliance system of democracies that other countries want to join

Pillar 3: Catalyzing Enduring Economic Advantage in the AI Era

• The US is likely to be the pre-eminent economic power in the 21st century, despite the rise of China.
• Deep tech sectors are especially important to the US both economically and strategically
  • China's share of global output in these sectors grew from 3% to 25% from 1998 to 2020
  • US should continue to try to limit China’s rise in strategically important sectors

Recommendations:

America Builds: Production Capacity as Geopolitical Power

1. Organize for Advanced Manufacturing Leadership
   • Should create a new manufacturing-focused body within Commerce, and massively increase funding for targeted US manufacturing capacity building
2. Accelerate Adoption of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies
   • USG should support small and medium manufacturers in particular with funding
3. Deploy Techno-Industrial Financing Mechanisms
   • Funding innovation can be hard for private actors due to long timescales and high risk, so USG should take on some of the risk to crowd-in private funding
4. Construct Secure, Next-Generation Digital Infrastructure
   • China took the lead on 5G technology, USG must not let that happen for further advances

Strength in Numbers: Market Alliances and Economic Statecraft

1. Strengthen Techno-Economic Partnerships with Allies
   • Need to revitalise WTO to avoid China’s unfair practices and reward rules-based market economies
2. Sharpen the Economic Statecraft Toolkit
   • US efforts to counter China’s economic and trade offensive should intensify
3. Build US Economic Institutions Fit for Strategic Competition
   • POTUS should appoint a special White House advisor on Economic Security

Enduring Advantage: Winning the Talent Competition

1. Make All K-16 Classrooms AI-equipped by 2030
   • USG should provide funding and guidelines for AI to be more deeply, but responsibly, integrated into education
2. Develop a National Approach to the Advanced Industry Workforce
   • Promote apprenticeships and other non-traditional entry pathways into the technology workforce
3. Enact High-Skill Immigration Reform
   • US companies are currently undersupplied top talent, and enabling more immigrants to enter would bolster US competitiveness. More than half of math + CS researchers in the US are foreign-born.
4. Establish a National Commission on the Future of Work
   • Should have a central policy-advising body analysing the future jobs landscape

Annex: Fundamental Designs of the ‘Axis of Disruptors’

China

The overarching goal of the CCP is to transform the PRC into the leading global power across all domains.

• Politically, the CCP wants to prove that ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ is better than democracy, and woo developing nations towards its style of governance and politics.
• Economically, most analysts used to assume China would inevitably overtake the US in terms of GDP, but with an ageing population and slowing growth, particularly after Covid, this no longer seems assured. China is especially focused on industrial strength, rather than consumer satisfaction.
• Militarily, China wants to assert its dominance in its region, and over time across the world, to rival US military might.
• Scientifically, China is making significant progress in becoming the global innovation leader, with lots of government funding in key domains.

Russia

The Kremlin wants to cement Putin’s power domestically, and project power internationally to relive Soviet glory days.

• Politically, the main goal is to stay in power and avoid credible media or political dissent domestically.
• Economically, the government is heavily reliant on natural resources, and has close ties to oligarchs, giving favourable business opportunities in exchange for political support.
• Militarily, Russia’s nuclear arsenal remains formidable, but its conventional forces are notably weakened, especially following the long Ukraine invasion.
• Scientifically, Russia still has an impressive talent base of basic science and math researchers, but lags behind in terms of technology and innovation.

Iran

The Iranian regime seeks to maintain domestic control while becoming the unassailed regional power and removing US influence from the region.

• Politically, Iran seeks to overtake Israel as the Middle East’s most powerful country and to remove US and allied forces.
• Economically, Iran wants to diversify away from oil, become more self-sufficient, and avoid being held back by sanctions.
• Militarily, Iran wants to project sufficient strength to deter attacks by the US and Israel, while using its proxies to achieve strategic ends in the region.
• Scientifically, Iran prioritises cyber, aerospace and nuclear capabilities.

North Korea

North Korea wishes to project its national power on the global stage, and reunite with the South on favourable terms.

• Politically, the preservation of the Kim dynasty is a key goal, as is deterring perceived existential threats from South Korea and the US.
• Economically, DPRK seeks to maintain a basic level of subsistence for its population to avoid popular uprisings, while focusing mainly on securing weapons supply chains.
• Militarily, the focus is on a nuclear deterrent, and asserting power on the Korean peninsula.
• Scientifically, innovation focuses on weapons, and in particular nuclear and missile technology.