(Part 1)
I’VE STATED before that I think the Nation-State model is obsolete.
To summarize, it’s because I think that most states could not exist on their own; could not be sovereign on their own.
Consider the Philippines as an example. If for whatever reason, we are cut off from the global financial system, the global energy system or even the internet, our society may not necessarily collapse, but large segments of it will die off and the country will be forced to return to a relatively more primitive iteration.
To put it another way, the Philippines is too weak to be sovereign because we do not control the inputs that come to us from the rest of the world. To be sovereign is to have control, and we have very little control over the things our society use to thrive.
Now, enter Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics. Both industries are projected to not only be transformative, they also have the potential to eliminate most of scarcity. Add in the possibility of orbital mining and infrastructure, and what you have is an entirely different society.
Of course, only two nation-states have the capacity to produce Artificial Intelligence: China and the United States of America. No other nation-state can do it, which is to say all other nations are not sovereign when it comes to AI. It may change in the future, but for now, if any country wants access to AI models, it’s a duopoly.
To summarize: AI has the potential to transform society into something wondrous. There will be costs, there may even be chaos, but if AI delivers (and I believe, it will), the future will be transformed. Only China and the US can create and maintain AI. Other nation-states do not.
Therefore, if we want access to this technology, we will have to side with one or the other. Those who refuse will be left behind.
It won’t be anything crude, but AI will become a dependence and dependence is the bane of sovereignty. This is why I think Artificial Intelligence will become a major nail on the coffin of the Nation-State./PN
