Tom Davidson, How can the middle powers avoid getting trounced?
AI stalls or governments shut the frontier down. This sits outside the Plan A probabilities above.
+AI stalls or governments shut the frontier down. This is outside the Plan A probabilities above.
"AI progress slows, and AI causes less disruption than expected."
UK Government Office for Science and AI Security Institute, AI Scenarios 2030
@@ -315,13 +313,10 @@ footer { margin-top: 3rem; padding-top: 1rem; border-top: 1px solid var(--rule);Luckily we completely dodged authoritarianism and now Benevolent Prime Minister for Life (BDFL) leads us through. Everyone is very happy, especially since the free beer, rugby, and netball are a great respite from our quickly shrinking population and the ever more confusing global situation. - Joe Citizen, 2041
We condition on rapid AI progress and leave aside our roughly 35% chance that progress plateaus first. The boring decade remains visible above, but it is outside the Plan A probability denominator.
-AI 2040 gives Plan A a 72% chance of alignment and a 42% chance of a great future. It does not say what makes up the remaining 30%. We focus on dictatorship because of the risks laid out in Forethought's paper, AI-Enabled Coups.
-AI 2040's 42% "great future" is global. It does not guarantee that ANZ remains democratic. We put homegrown autocracy after that outcome and give it a 30% conditional probability. This is our estimate, not AI 2040's. Under Plan A, the path is 42% x 30% = 12.6%. The other 29.4% reaches the later ANZ choices with political power still spread.
-AI 2040 models energy consumption rising about eight times by 2040 and notes that proven mineral reserves cover decades of current extraction, but it does not price the tonnage needed for a robot economy growing every 6-12 months. Coal, uranium, energy trade, and Australian mine capacity are outside its model. (Economics of Plan A)
-AI 2040's proposed division of technical safety work near the end of its preparation phase allocates about 1% to model character. We propose that ANZ specialise in this and related evaluation research (section 2).
-AI 2040 does share some US wealth abroad, but very unevenly. In 2032 its American dividend starts at $45,000 while adults outside the US and China average $1,200. By 2035 the figures are about $1M and $10,000. ANZ may do better than that generic non-US payment through superannuation and mining, but only if the gains are broadly owned. A rich national balance sheet can still leave the median household without economic leverage. (AI 2040)
-We leave out a trans-Tasman split and a separate Australian decision during US sabotage operations because neither changes the main choices above.
+We condition on rapid AI progress. The boring decade is visible above, but is outside the Plan A probability denominator.
+AI 2040 leaves its aligned-but-not-great outcome undecomposed. Someone else's empire is one possibility, not the whole category.
+AI 2040's "great future" is global. ANZ could still become autocratic, so we add that risk for the reasons laid out in Forethought's paper, AI-Enabled Coups.
+AI 2040 models energy use and mineral reserves, but not the tonnage required by a rapidly growing robot economy. We add ANZ's mineral exposure, public ownership, and hosting terms. (Economics of Plan A)
This is built from the AI Futures Project's AI 2040 scenario and supplements. Their caveat applies to our use of the numbers too: the economic model "plausibly contains bugs" and they do not trust its outputs to be accurate. The local source mirrors retain exact line references for auditing.
Thanks also to Rebecca Hawkins, Michael J. Kerrison, Tom Barber, and others in the AI 2027 group who joined a June 2026 scoping discussion.
diff --git a/tree.svg b/tree.svg index 912ba98..cfd6022 100644 --- a/tree.svg +++ b/tree.svg @@ -31,8 +31,6 @@