This is both (1) not necessarily true -- there's no first-principles reason why being powerful implies being unethical -- and (2) deeply pessimistic and defeatist. You can apply whataboutism and say that everyone's equally bad, but I assure you that there's a pretty big difference, even down to your quality life, between the types of systems you choose to participate in.

> real lie here is that there's an ethical superpower

It’s a lie in the way cats are round is a lie—actually a lie, but one nobody brought up.

I don’t think Dwarkesh is arguing for global American hegemony. Just that if AI becomes dominant, having AIs embedded with American cultural values, broadly, is probably better than having ones seeded with Xi Jinping thought.

> China and the US can both be bad, and they're both going to use AI for mass internal and external surveillance and weapon targeting

Agree. But I don’t think any Chinese AI companies get to sue the CCP over it.