Economist Noah Smith revises his earlier assessment, arguing that cybersecurity and finance will sustain arms-race pressures requiring access to the most capable AI models

I write today in Silicon Continent with Jesús Saa-Requejo "Three Theses on AI Value Capture". We argue that the leading AI labs are betting hundreds of billions on the idea that holds the best model captures the value. We think that's the wrong bet. The model layer is squeezed between customers who can switch with a simple change in configuration and suppliers who are each monopolists. Our hypothesis is that the surplus flows past the labs, to chips above and implementation below. Hence the country that wins AI is not the one with the tokens on the frontier model. It's the one that is best able to implement the technology. https://www.siliconcontinent.com/p/three-theses-on-ai-value-capture