JAMES ERWIN: ‘Effective Altruists’ Want China To Win The AI Race

The U.S. is winning the artificial intelligence race with China, just barely. President Trump has released his vision for American dominance of AI and is working to expand microchip and energy production right here at home, but a powerful movement seeks to undermine our recent gains in cutting-edge technology.

So-called “Effective Altruists” think we should let China win the AI race. They’re like the hippies who thought we could get along with the Soviets by destroying our own nukes. What began as making sure charity didn’t go to waste has morphed into “be nice to China.” Their website’s statement of principles talks about how helping all mankind is more important than helping our families and neighbors.

Effective altruism has gone from better charity to communist slogans about the brotherhood of man. Now it’s a woke crusade against American tech and energy. (POSTED: REP WARREN DAVIDSON: Privacy, Artificial Intelligence, And Congress)

EA’s leaders and donors have spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding a constellation of think tanks and strategically placed policy fellows to spread their gospel. Dustin Moskovitz, one of the key funders of the EA movement, was also one of Joe Biden’s biggest donors. Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s proposed licensing regime for AI development, which would have given the Sam Altmans of the world a cartel to freeze out smaller competitors, was the brainchild of an EA-funded fellow in his office.

Their focus isn’t on practical issues like data center construction, supply chains, or meeting energy demands. It’s on the imagined possibility that future AI systems will kill us all. Theirs is not a movement informed by real-world debates – it’s grounded in fear of Skynet from the Terminator franchise. This fixation on existential risk has corrupted policy discussions, prioritizing fear mongering and unrealistic hypotheticals over practical national security and economic decision-making.

By contrast, President Trump’s AI agenda is rooted in common sense and reality. Through his AI Action Plan, his administration is focusing on building AI infrastructure right here at home and unleashing American companies to keep ahead of China. In practice this means faster permitting for chip fabs, vital investment in critical infrastructure, and energy dominance. It also means thousands of construction and engineering jobs to build data centers and supply them with power, helping the blue-collar boom begun in the president’s first term.

President Trump lives in the world of reality. When he sees an opportunity for American leadership, he seizes it. When he learns about barriers to achieving that goal, he works to remove them. More workforce training, new nuclear plants, streamlined permitting and environmental review – this is the Trump AI agenda. It’s pragmatic and achievable and not driven by quasi-religious dread of the future.

EA’s influence undermines this pro-worker, America First agenda. Obsessed with science fiction scenarios, these doomers don’t care if they slow down U.S. competitiveness with China or kill good-paying jobs in the process. By demanding layer after layer of bureaucratic oversight, self-serving licensing schemes, and globalist governance agreements, EA adherents are trying to slow down the very companies the U.S. needs to win the AI race and sell out our sovereignty in the process.

If EA-inspired rules succeed, American small businesses will pay more for cloud services, consumers will see fewer AI-powered products, and China will set the terms of the global tech stack.

As a result, U.S. firms could face bureaucratic delays and extra costs, while China surges ahead with state-backed investment and no regard for what they might break along the way. Ironically, in trying to save humanity from a Terminator-style future, effective altruists are strengthening the Chinese Communist Party. Huawei and other Chinese firms stand to benefit if American companies have their hands tied by bureaucracy. That’s not altruism, it’s surrender.

What EA adherents forget is that every general-purpose technology, be it electricity, the automobile, or the internet came with tradeoffs. America didn’t become the world’s biggest and strongest economy by avoiding innovation out of anxiety. Our nation managed risks while building the future of material prosperity we enjoy today. If we let ideological movements like effective altruism dictate the pace of AI development, we will lose both our technological edge and the enormous prosperity that comes with it.

This is not to say AI is free of trade-offs. It simply means safety should be pursued parallel to growth, not at the expense of it. And it certainly doesn’t mean that D.C. stakeholders should allow EA activists to frame the debate around far-fetched science fiction scenarios.

AI is too important to be sidelined by speculative fears. The Trump administration’s approach, which has prioritized infrastructure, jobs, and national security, reflects the urgency of the moment. Effective Altruists may believe they’re doing good, but their approach would leave America weaker and China stronger. For the sake of our economy, our security, and our leadership in the world, we can’t afford to let this misplaced altruism slow down the United States and tip the balance in favor of China.

James Erwin is Director of Innovation Policy at Americans for Tax Reform.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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