Ex-Google CEO Breaks Down the US vs. China AI Race & How We Avoid a Global Crisis w/ Dr. Eric Schmidt & Dave Blundin | EP #207

Dave Blundin (0:00)

Is America gonna win the AI race?

Eric Schmidt (0:02)

There are three obvious threats right now.

Peter Diamandis (0:05)

Is China winning the global race to develop artificial intelligence technology? So how far ahead of China do you think we are?

Peter Diamandis (0:13)

Overall, I would say...

Eric Schmidt (0:15)

China put in 172 gigawatts of solar last year, I think is the number. It's remarkable. We needed, in our calculation, by 2030, 92 gigawatts to be built. A big nuclear power plant is somewhere between one and one and a half gigawatts. The country needs more energy. And if we don't get more energy, we're not going to be able to fully exploit the lead we have in AI and AGI. It's very clear. It's probably the case that...

Dave Blundin (0:48)

Now that's the Moonshot, ladies and gentlemen.

Peter Diamandis (0:53)

Everybody, welcome to part two of Eric Schmidt Week on Moonshots.

In this episode, my Moonshot mate, Dave Blundin, is interviewing Eric Schmidt about US vs. China and how to avoid crisis during this period of hyper-exponential growth in AI. Heads up, this audio recording from Eric is a little bit choppy. He was on Wi-Fi from his hotel room. But guarantee you, the content is valuable. So please listen in. And also, this was recorded about a month ago. It took us a while to get the footage out to all of you. All right, let's jump in this episode with Dave Blundin and Eric Schmidt.

Dave Blundin (1:33)

So why don't I start you with is America going to win the AI race? Because I know that's a topic that you've spoken on quite a bit. It's also addressed a little bit in your new book, Genesis, AI Hope and the Human Spirit, which hopefully everybody will read with Henry Kissinger, actually, as a co-author. So are we going to win the AI race? And, you know, what are the scenarios where we're going to lose?

Eric Schmidt (1:55)

It can look like we will. And let me define you like, so I think the San Francisco Consensus, which is I call it, is what people in San Francisco believe, which charitably was, is that you're going to see a build from current objective computing to various forms of a person of self-improvement to eventual AGI and superintelligence.

In order to do that, the partners had to use enormous amount of hardware, like Google TPUs, big A-ships and so on, and everybody in the United States knows that. It sure looks like the hardware restrictions that the Trump and Biden administrations have put on China are going to prevent them from competing at that space. I've agreed with Kelly and Feng for a few days. I have good relationships with the Chinese. And my conclusion is they're fighting a different game. They're regular about AI in every province, every service, everything, but in a more classical way. Where the merit has been a secret AGI. I was quite worried that we would end up in a super intelligence race where you would end up with such enormous gains that one side would have to actually pre, would have to actually attack the other one. I know there's a preemptory attack. It looks like that fear from me was not well grounded in fact. I think we're going to be okay for a few years.

Dave Blundin (3:25)

Really? What about robotics? We seem to be pretty far behind in that front.

Eric Schmidt (3:29)

Yeah, if it's okay for me to be completely blunt, the Chinese are doing the same thing in robotics that they have done in electronic vehicles. In case you're confused while the current government in the US gets rid of solar and wind subsidies and promos, China put in 172 gigawatts of solar last year, I think is the number. It's remarkable. So the Chinese race around solar and EVs, electronic vehicles of one kind or another, looks like they've won. They're using all of those technologies, in particular, new ways of building stepper motors and other very inexpensive, very powerful, you know, physical thing. A good example is Unitree just launched the R1 for $6,000 available in December. I've ordered one. We'll see how good it is. But the arrival of humanoid robots is likely to be dominated by China. I'm not suggesting there won't be areas where the US will play. The US will still have spaces of very high-end, very sophisticated stuff. Our software is so much better than the Chinese software.

But at the hardware level, I think you should assume that the world will be awash in inexpensive Chinese robots. In the same sense that there will be awash in inexpensive Chinese electric vehicles. Who knew?