If AI accelerates growth in frontier economies, what happens to Mali? A simple model finds each year of faster AI adoption in the developing world is worth about $42.6 trillion in present-value income.
Very interesting article. Thinking of geopolitical factors could add more components to the scenarios.
There would be quite substantial geopolitical pushbacks against scenario 4. Size of pushback would likely be correlated with population of the catching up countries. Morr intensely directed against the future largest populations like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia - as they are moving up the ranks from regional players to regional powers to global power challengers.
Historical examples of similar pushbacks are plaza accords/1987 tariffs against Japan, semiconductor sanctions/EV-solar panel tariffs against China.
FWIW I've long argued that the best way to accelerate catch-up growth would be to subsidize long-term migration from China to the world's poorest countries--I hint at that in Culture Transplant. Human capital externalities rule everything around me, after all.
It's possible that TAI will accelerate catch-up, since imitation is easier than innovation. But if (formal and informal) institutional quality is the big barrier to catch-up, then it'll be tougher for TAI to dramatically close gaps unless people hand over a lot of institutions to TAI. I'd be happy to see that-- AIs as 1/3 of the upper house of the legislature in poor countries, for example-- but it'd be a tough sell.
Perhaps that'd be another grant program that could accelerate catch-up: subsidizing experiments that offer major roles for AIs in formal governance in poor countries. Start with traffic courts, work up from there!
Very interesting article. Thinking of geopolitical factors could add more components to the scenarios.
There would be quite substantial geopolitical pushbacks against scenario 4. Size of pushback would likely be correlated with population of the catching up countries. Morr intensely directed against the future largest populations like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia - as they are moving up the ranks from regional players to regional powers to global power challengers.
Historical examples of similar pushbacks are plaza accords/1987 tariffs against Japan, semiconductor sanctions/EV-solar panel tariffs against China.
FWIW I've long argued that the best way to accelerate catch-up growth would be to subsidize long-term migration from China to the world's poorest countries--I hint at that in Culture Transplant. Human capital externalities rule everything around me, after all.
It's possible that TAI will accelerate catch-up, since imitation is easier than innovation. But if (formal and informal) institutional quality is the big barrier to catch-up, then it'll be tougher for TAI to dramatically close gaps unless people hand over a lot of institutions to TAI. I'd be happy to see that-- AIs as 1/3 of the upper house of the legislature in poor countries, for example-- but it'd be a tough sell.
Perhaps that'd be another grant program that could accelerate catch-up: subsidizing experiments that offer major roles for AIs in formal governance in poor countries. Start with traffic courts, work up from there!
Really interesting, thanks for sharing!
On what countries could do to catch up on growth, I’ve found Jeffrey Ding’s diffusion thesis particularly interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/live/VhDm347BU-U?si=zOV08loTufkVzmTX
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691260341/technology-and-the-rise-of-great-powers