# Racing China can increase the risks on both sides

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/racing-china-can-increase-the-risks-on-both-sides/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Katja Grace](https://realalpha.app/people/katja-grace/) · Founder, AI Impacts · Co-founded AI Impacts and leads research on AI forecasting and its likely impacts on society.
- Host: Zershaaneh Qureshi
- Show: 80,000 Hours Podcast
- Episode: [AI Overlords vs Power-hungry Humans: Which Should Scare You More?](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/), Sep 29, 2026
- Moment: 1:08:53 to 1:13:58 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/racing-china-can-increase-the-risks-on-both-sides/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/?t=4133

## Quote

> “i guess it just seems like trying to race them mostly **increases the chance** of all of this stuff happening because it shortens timelines”
> — [Katja Grace](https://realalpha.app/people/katja-grace/) at [1:13:35](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/?t=4415) · 80,000 Hours Podcast

## Takeaways

1. China's AI dominance could concentrate power in one leader.
2. Race arguments can be used to justify moving faster.
3. Try to coordinate with China to slow development.

## About this segment

Tom and Katja Grace question whether beating China justifies accelerating AI development. They argue for coordinating on a pause, since a race could shorten timelines and increase the chance of catastrophe.

From “AI Overlords vs Power-hungry Humans: Which Should Scare You More?”, Sep 29, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[1:08:57](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/?t=4137) is easier. So something else that there's, that's kind of a hot topic at the moment is sort of how the US should approach competition with China over AI. Some people are very pro racing and trying to beat China. Some people are very against it. I'm really curious about how the amount that you worry about like human power grabs and you know other forms of human power concentration might affect your view on trying to beat China yeah maybe it makes sense to start with Tom here what do you think so I do think that after I thought about the risk of extreme human power concentration and came to thought think that would be pretty bad I then reflected on the situation with China and said well if China ends up you know completely dominating in AI and you know getting a decisive strategic advantage it is pretty much a worst case scenario for power

[1:09:57](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/?t=4197) concentration because you have a society where power is already extremely concentrated where there isn't a norm for kind of having lots of reflective deliberation and an open-minded debate and I do think a very very likely scenario there is you have one person that controls everything um so that did make me more worried about a world where china dominates but i want to stress you know the risk that china wins is just being used over and over by all of the company ceos and will no doubt be used over and over by the kind of government actors that want to race ahead and i do think we should be we should be skeptical of those arguments and you know currently china isn't that close i think to being able to push the frontier um in ai and you know know, you don't want to race ahead to beat China. And then you realise that, you know, you've ruined

[1:10:48](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/?t=4248) democracy in the US. And so now, you know, you try to avoid extreme power concentration in the hands of China, but you've just got extreme power concentration in the hands of a few people in the US. So I do think we should be sceptical of those arguments. But at the same time, yeah, I do think that this is an additional reason why if we're going to pause, we should, you know, do a deal with china make sure they're pausing as well and i do favor trying to find a way to do a pause where china isn't just catching up to the us and where it's not like oh when we undo the pause now china is like much more likely to win the ai race i think we should try and pause in a way which kind of maintains the us's chances of winning and maintains china's chances of winning um which is a pretty a pretty reasonable thing for both sides to to agree to but some proposals for pausing in

[1:11:36](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/?t=4296) in particular, the AI Futures project, Plan A, does actually give a fair amount more relative influence to China if you do the pause, but then the pause breaks down. Yeah, Katja, I'm interested in your views on trying to beat China and whether your views would change at all if you cared a bit more about human power concentration. Okay. Tom on various things there. And especially importantly that like, I think this is, I don't know, brought up a lot as an excuse for going fast by people who want to go fast and is like expected is a smaller issue than it is, you know, painted as.

[1:12:22](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/?t=4342) I guess also I don't know how much effort is going into, like, you know, organizing for China to also pause, my guess is, not as much as I would like by a large amount. I guess I feel like the game theory of this is often described quite weirdly in that, you know, if this is really dangerous enough that we would want to pause, like, that incentive also applies to China. I feel like people talk about this as if like China is, you know, entirely consists of people unable to understand that or like intrinsically evil so that they just want to do whatever will be bad or something.

[1:13:01](https://realalpha.app/v/FHCxnHU6jFQ/?t=4381) It's sort of like they presumably also don't want to be destroyed by AI or to have some sort of dystopia. i do think there's like you know it's more likely that the you know um that someone in power there like a human in power there would want to have like a human coup whereas here um maybe power is more spread out uh so that changes things somewhat but yeah i guess i i think we in both cases should be trying pretty hard to coordinate with them to not be doing this stuff i guess it just seems like trying to race them mostly increases the chance of all of this stuff happening because it shortens timelines i think we often talk about who wins and i think that's sort of a bad way of describing it that we shouldn't be doing yeah so before we wrap i