A U.S. Strategy to Secure Geopolitical Advantage on an Uncertain Path to Superintelligence

Frontier artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance, and an increasing number of experts contend that the creation of superintelligence is possible. Although progress might slow or even halt, the transformative potential of superintelligence demands proactive strategy-making. The stakes are high, not only for geopolitics, but for humanity’s survival and agency. What, then, should U.S. strategy be? Should the United States pursue AI supremacy by monopolizing the frontier? Co-develop superintelligence with rivals? Deter its advance? Pause and freeze its development? And in a competitive environment, how will other powers and geopolitical rivals respond to the choices they face?

In this paper, the authors argue that seven archetypal strategies dominate the debate, that current evidence cannot resolve five pivotal uncertainties about the most feasible and sensible strategy, and that committing prematurely to any one of them, or deferring commitment too long, forecloses options. They therefore recommend a Freedom of Action strategy to build and preserve the ability to secure geopolitical advantage and ensure humanity’s survival with agency through the transition to superintelligence.