The age of AI soft power

TOKYO – AI leaders like OpenAI and DeepMind see themselves as being in a race to build artificial general intelligence (AGI): a model capable of performing any intellectual task that a human can. At the same time, the U.S. and Chinese governments see the AI race as a national-security priority that demands massive investments reminiscent of the Manhattan Project. In both cases, AI is seen as a new form of “hard power,” accessible only to superpowers with vast computational resources and the means to convert them into economic and military dominance. But this view is incomplete, and increasingly outdated. Since the Chinese developer DeepSeek launched its lower-cost, competitively performing model earlier this year, we have been in a new era. No longer is the ability to build cutting-edge AI tools confined to a few tech giants. Multiple high-performing models have emerged around the world, showing that AI’s true potential lies in its potential to extend soft power. The era of “bigger-is-better” models ended in 2024. Since then, model superiority has not been determined solelyWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times