Compute Governance

Governments are already implementing chip export controls and discussing compute monitoring frameworks. Since AGI needs massive computational resources, controlling GPUs could theoretically limit who can build dangerous systems.

However, this approach faces fundamental limits:

• It concentrates power in companies and countries that have existing computational resources.
• Each of them still face competitive pressure to build AGI first.
• Once AGI exists, it can design AI that proliferates easier — with more-efficient hardware and other infrastructure.
• The physical resources (silicon, energy) still exist. We can only temporarily control who can create dangerous uses of these resources.

Compute governance might slow the race to the "ocean" — but it doesn't stop it.

Further, by concentrating development into a few large companies and countries, it can reduce the diversity of safety approaches — without even stopping the competitive dynamics that were trying to stop.