OUR PICKSAmerica Should Assume the Worst About AI | Golden Dome Could Learn from SDI Politics | Export Controls Aren’t Enough to Beat China’s AI, and more

America Should Assume the Worst About AI  (Matan Chorev and Joel Predd, Foreign Affairs)
How to plan for a tech-driven geopolitical crisis.

Heeding the Risks of Geopolitical Instability in a Race to Artificial General Intelligence  (Karl P. Mueller, RAND)
As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly advances, many AI experts predict that the first state to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) that can perform a wide range of tasks better than humans will gain huge advantages in military and economic power. If U.S. and Chinese leaders believe that losing the race to AGI would pose a dire threat to their nations, how will they respond if their strategic competitor appears poised to win it? Or, how will they respond if their state successfully develops AGI and then faces challenges to its newly achieved technological dominance?

The Texas Floods Were a Preview of What’s to Come  (Tik Root, Wired)
Mounting evidence shows no US state is safe from the flooding that ravaged Texas’ Kerr Country.

Masked and Armed Agents Are Arresting People on U.S. Streets as Aggressive Enforcement Ramps Up  (Dafydd Townley, The Conversation)
There are masked men, and some women, on the streets in American cities, sometimes travelling in unmarked cars, often carrying weapons and wearing military-style kit. They have the power to identify, arrest, detain non-citizens and deport undocumented immigrants. They also have the right to interrogate any individual who they believe is not a citizen over their right to remain in the US.

The FBI’s Leaders ‘Have No Idea What They’re Doing’  (Quinta Jurecic, The Atlantic)
A casualty of Trump’s purge speaks out.

Golden Dome Could Learn from SDI Politics  (William Courtney, RealClearDefense / RAND)
President Trump has proposed that to “protect our homeland” he would move ahead with a Golden Dome missile defense. The Department of Defense is seeking a hefty budget increase for it next year, but the program is controversial. Missile defense was contentious also in the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan offered a vision to render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” Golden Dome proponents might avoid some of the disputes of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) era.

Export Controls Aren’t Enough to Beat China’s AI  (Robert C. O’Brien, National Interest)
China’s progress in artificial intelligence is not slowing down. America can only win by doing what it does best: innovating.