President Trump, here's a deal you can make

Dear President Trump,

Tomorrow is a chance for you to make history, when you meet with President Xi and talk about AI. As we both know, almost everybody’s expectations are low.

But you can surprise them! And as I suggested last week in The Economist, if you think about it right, it’s your chance to win a Nobel Prize. (Sam Altman thinks the same!)

Now, here’s the thing: most people are focused on a deal that you don’t want to make, around a slowdown. I get it. I happen to think a slowdown might be a good idea, especially if we made it now while we are still ahead — that could actually lock in our lead!. And I would caution you that if we don’t have a slowdown, really bad things might happen, and you would take a lot of the blame.

But if that’s not for you, it’s not for you.

Instead, what I propose is different. I am not saying that you should go for a slowdown, if your heart isn’t in it.

Instead, you can go for something that will surprise a lot of folks: you can go for collaboration — just like we did back in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, around things like space and smallpox. But this time around cancer and cybersecurity.

More people will tell you China would never want to collaborate.

But that’s just not true.

China is practically begging to collaborate. This morning I read in The Guardian that

Tuesday’s front page of the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese communist party (CCP), ran an article saying that the US and China should “make Al a new frontier for China-US cooperation” and “make good use of the intergovernmental dialogue mechanism on AI.”

Take them up on that! I gave two specific examples in The Economist:

If you make a deal on all this, you really could win that Nobel.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gary Marcus,

Professor Emeritus, NYU

CEO and Founder, Geometric Intelligence (acquired by Uber)