Tom Davidson on The U.S. and China should establish Mut…

Tom Davidson

AI governance researcher

So even conditional on the political will for implementing Plan A existing, it currently seems unlikely that US/China follow through on MACD on fabs and robots (most of their economy!). And if they don't, we are back to the problem of dry tinder and the dangerously fast intelligence explosion.

AI Verified (Jul 10, 2026)

Source:

Tom Davidson, “Plan A’s problem with dry tinder,” July 10, 2026.

2mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

The U.S. and China should establish Mutually Assured Compute Destruction

votes Against

Statement relation verification history AI Verified Report this

AI Verified Quote says US/China likely would not implement MACD for fabs and robots; directly bears on establishing MACD. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5.6 · 2mo ago

Vote inference verification history AI Verified Report this

AI Verified Quote says US/China are unlikely to follow through on MACD for fabs and robots; this supports opposition. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5.6 · 2mo ago

Quote authenticity verification history

Report this

AI Verified Tom Davidson’s source page (July 10, 2026) contains the exact stored wording at paragraph 73. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5.6 · 2mo ago

replying to Tom Davidson

Other opinions from Tom Davidson

See all

Tom Davidson votes Against

We should adopt AI 2040 Plan A

Overall, I’m sympathetic to Plan A. The basic logic of the plan is sound: we will need to slow down AI progress at some point; this is a concrete plan for doing that. [...] But currently I lean towards starting with software scaling.

AI Verified source (Jul 10, 2026)

added 1mo ago

Tom Davidson votes Against

The U.S. and China should establish Mutually Assured Compute Destruction

Even conditional on the political will for Plan A existing initially, I worry that the MACD equilibrium will be too fragile.

AI Verified source (Jul 10, 2026)

added 2mo ago

Tom Davidson votes For

Democracies should share frontier AI models with allies

Middle powers should help the US, and make sure they are rewarded with continued access to frontier AI and new technologies (including military tech).

AI Verified source (May 27, 2026)

added 1mo ago