I am begging people to explain to me how they imagine this "insurmountable lead" happening. My personal intuition is that a lab that reaches "RSI" first rapidly burns through the algorithmic component of the exponential and plateaues, waiting for new hardware production (which it, optimistically, will also help design). In a few months, lab#2 does the same, then the whole field; from there, relative capabilities of actors will have more to do with hardware supply chain vendor relationships and long-term contracts, and plausibly we see Total Jensen Victory, rather than any "lab" triumph. But that's skipping some steps. What does lab#1 do with its advantage? Specifically, assume it's Anthropic. So while they have AI God pushed to the limit of intelligence on the capacity they have contracted, what? Do they hoover up all the capital in the global market, precluding catch-up? Do they make a cyberweapon to melt GPUs at Stargate? Do they at least nuke the Three Gorges Damn with China's own Dongfengs?

Don't shy away from the scale and extremes of the scenario. dunk on me if you can. I'm curious.