I'd guess leaders are thinking more in terms of national capacity to create more advanced technologies than geopolitical adversaries. If US policy shakes out in a way that protects copyright holders at the expense of AI innovation, I think it's apparent that the end result will be that our rivals will both violate copyright and beat us to building widespread expertise.
> I'd guess leaders are thinking more in terms of national capacity to create more advanced technologies than geopolitical adversaries.
I think there's a strong argument that they should be thinking in those terms, but I'm a lot less convinced that they do usually think in that way.
Or more charitably, they have the responsibility to balance current interests against future interests. And this isn't just a tricky thing for democracies, dictators also have to strike this same balance, just with different trade offs.
But in this case, for the US, it honestly isn't clear to me that policy makers should favor the AI side of this tussle. I think culture has been among the, if not the very, most important export of the US for nearly a century, and I think favorable copyright treatment has been at least part of the story with that.
Maybe that whole landscape is different now in a way that makes that whole model obsolete, but I think it's an open question at least.
