We’re racing toward something. Whether it’s AGI or another false summit, the scale of what we’re building is hard to ignore.
There are only a few ways this plays out.
1. We scale current techniques to AGI.
The compute, energy, and coordination required are beyond any single country. power grids the size of Brazil, cooling towers louder than waterfalls. It becomes clear that no one country can do it alone. So we’re faced with a choice.
Do we come together and build it, or fight until one of us claims it for ourselves?
2. We invent a breakthrough.
Not scale. Just one singular leap out of a lab or a company or a garage. A chip, a model, a cooling trick. Suddenly, the gap between “close” and “there” disappears. Someone gets there first.
Do they share it? Or defend it like a weapon?
3. LLMs plateau.
They change everything, but stop short of general intelligence. We chase margins. Optimize workflows. The systems get smarter, but not general. Eventually the hype fades. Not because AI failed but because it settled into the tedium of obviousness.
A winter, not of research, but of imagination.
Two of these futures end in conflict. One in exhaustion. Only one asks us to act like a species.
We may not control what we discover. But we will decide how we respond.
I hope we choose well.
--
If you have any questions or thoughts, don't hesitate to reach out. You can find me as @viksit on Twitter.