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

world international-relations us ai-safety ai-ethics china policy cybersecurity ai-policy ai-regulation ai ai-governance

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Arguments for

Credible withdrawal deterrent

Proponents describe MACD as an escrow or hostage-exchange arrangement in which each side can destroy compute rather than let the other seize it. In this view, mutual possession of destructive capacity is meant to dissuade withdrawal and make the arrangement credible.

The escrow. My favorite clause. New Chinese datacenters get built in Canada. New American ones in Mongolia. If the deal collapses, each side destroys its own chips rather than let the rival seize them. The authors name it mutually assured compute destruction. It is a hostage exch…

Vladyslav Podoliako · Jul 10, 2026 · full quote
The purpose is to mutually possess the ability to destroy, thereby dissuading withdrawal.

石部統久 · Jul 10, 2026 · full quote

Best available safety plan

Supporters argue that intentionally entering a MACD regime belongs to the most thorough and thoughtful plan currently offered for navigating superintelligence and international coordination. They acknowledge imperfections and long odds, but say the choices were carefully considered and that stronger competing visions are hard to find.

Plan A is our positive vision for what should happen instead. In this scenario, humanity delays the development of superintelligence until 2040, makes all AI research public, allows dozens of companies globally to catch up to the frontier, and intentionally enters a regime of mut…

AI Futures Project · Jul 9, 2026 · full quote
Plan A is the single most thorough and thoughtful plan that I’m aware of for what the world should do as we approach Superintelligence. If we want to get through the singularity alive, this is my current best guess of the playbook we should be aiming to implement. It’s my current…

Eli Tyre · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote
Plan A seems like a good plan for handling powerful AI, or at least the best plan anyone’s written up. Many choices initially seem crazy, but are actually pretty carefully considered. Plan A isn’t likely to happen, but pushing for something like this seems worthwhile.

Ryan Greenblatt · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote
Very grateful that the AI 2027 team has a plan for the global calamity that is superintelligence [that arrives fast and before we are ready]. It is by no means perfect, but I’d love to see critics lay out a stronger competing vision; seems pretty hard.

Steven Adler · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote
Plan A feels like our best hope to do something actually good.

Scott Alexander · Jul 9, 2026 · full quote
We think it’s still good to recommend what would actually be good, even if you think that your audience is probably not going to listen.

Daniel Kokotajlo · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote

Less selective power

Some supporters favor MACD because, if it works, it lets a small set of actors trigger a broad compute shutdown rather than selectively disenfranchise targets while exempting themselves. In the quotes, this case is bundled with public AI research and allowing more companies globally to catch up to the frontier.

The 2040 plan is already much more open source friendly (even mandating it! yay). It also includes “mutually assured compute destruction” ideas which (if they work) effectively give one of 2-5 actors the ability to trigger a global compute winter – as opposed to giving 1-5 actors…

Vitalik Buterin · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote
Plan A is our positive vision for what should happen instead. In this scenario, humanity delays the development of superintelligence until 2040, makes all AI research public, allows dozens of companies globally to catch up to the frontier, and intentionally enters a regime of mut…

AI Futures Project · Jul 9, 2026 · full quote

Arguments against

Fragile and unproven

Critics worry that even if the needed political will existed initially, a MACD equilibrium would be too fragile to hold. More broadly, some say the larger plan would not work as written or that they still have serious disagreements with it.

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

Tom Davidson · Jul 10, 2026 · full quote
I doubt their Plan A would work as written, but it’d have a chance of producing evidence that convinced world leaders to switch to Plan S, which I think has a shot.

Nate Soares · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote
I’ve been working with the AI Futures Project to critique and improve their AI 2040 scenario. Ultimately I still have serious disagreements with it. However, to their credit, the team asked me to write up my criticisms to be shared alongside the scenario itself.

Richard Ngo · Jul 9, 2026 · full quote

Authoritarian enforcement risk

Opponents argue that the proposal would create a consortium resembling world government, backed by a massively expanded nanny state that confiscates GPUs. They say this violates the spirit of the 1st and 4th Amendments and amounts to a recipe for authoritarianism.

These proposals violate at minimum the spirit of the 1st and 4th Amendments. This is well intentioned, from people who sincerely believe that runaway AI is a greater risk than, say, China’s oppression of millions of people today, or the ideologies that killed tens of millions in …

Ramez Naam · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote

Middle ground

Serious but not endorsed

Several respondents describe the document as thoughtful, carefully considered, or useful futurism, while stopping short of endorsing the vision. They stress that it is a work of fiction, that they are agnostic on important assumptions, or that they do not agree with everything in it.

Alternative plans welcome

Even some supporters say Plan A should spark alternative plans, including less desirable plans that may be easier to implement. This treats MACD as part of a broader search for workable coordination mechanisms.

Finally, I’m also excited about scenarios for plans that are less desirable than Plan A which may be easier to implement.

Thomas Larsen · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote
Excited to finally publish AI 2040: Plan A, our plan for international coordination to get to a great AI future. We’ve put a lot of work into this and I hope that it sparks alternative plans that bring us closer to treating superintelligence with the seriousness it deserves.

Eli Lifland · Jul 11, 2026 · full quote

Insights

Many quotes discuss MACD through the broader 'Plan A' scenario, not as a standalone bilateral policy.
Across stances, commenters frequently describe the document as thoughtful, detailed, or worth taking seriously, even when they reject its recommendations.
Supporters often concede that the plan looks politically difficult or unlikely, yet still defend recommending it as what would actually be good.
The sharpest opposition splits between two concerns: whether the equilibrium can remain stable and whether enforcing it would require authoritarian state power.
Some favorable reactions depend not only on MACD itself but on the surrounding package of public research, transparency, diffusion, and international coordination.

In these quotes, support for MACD is usually tied to a larger vision of AI governance that emphasizes deterrence, openness, and the lack of a clearly stronger alternative. Opposition concentrates on two vulnerabilities: that the arrangement may be too fragile to sustain and that implementing it could require sweeping coercive powers. A notable share of respondents neither fully endorse nor dismiss the idea, instead treating it as a serious but highly speculative proposal.

Cast your vote:

Results (27 votes):

Total (27 votes)

For 17 (63%) Abstain 0 (0%) Against 10 (37%)

For (15)

Daniel Kokotajlo
AI Futures Project founder

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votes For and says:

We think it’s still good to recommend what would actually be good, even if you think that your audience is probably not going to listen.
AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Eli Tyre
Strategy Director at Palisade Research, briefing policymakers and the public on intelligence-explosion and AI loss-of-control risks.

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votes For and says:

Plan A is the single most thorough and thoughtful plan that I’m aware of for what the world should do as we approach Superintelligence. If we want to get through the singularity alive, this is my current best guess of the playbook we should be aiming...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Thomas Larsen
AI Futures Project researcher writing on Plan A assumptions, AI governance, and AI safety strategy.

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votes For and says:

Finally, I’m also excited about scenarios for plans that are less desirable than Plan A which may be easier to implement.
AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Marius Hobbhahn
CEO and co-founder of Apollo Research; AI safety researcher specializing in scheming and pre-deployment evaluations of frontier AI systems

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votes For and says:

When I read it for the first time my intuitive reaction was like “too many low probability things have to go right for this to work out” Which my brain somehow mapped to “therefore unrealistic” instead of the obvious “it’s a really hard problem and t...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Steven Adler
AI safety researcher; Lawfare writer

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votes For and says:

Very grateful that the AI 2027 team has a plan for the global calamity that is superintelligence [that arrives fast and before we are ready]. It is by no means perfect, but I’d love to see critics lay out a stronger competing vision; seems pretty har...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Jeffrey Ladish
Executive Director of Palisade Research; AI safety researcher focused on frontier AI controllability and cyber risks; former Anthropic information security lead

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votes For and says:

We’re in a pretty dire situation, but we can change course! I highly recommend checking out @DKokotajlo Plan A write-up & AI 2040 scenario.
AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Ryan Greenblatt
Chief Scientist at Redwood Research; AI safety researcher; lead author of "Alignment faking in large language models"

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votes For and says:

Plan A seems like a good plan for handling powerful AI, or at least the best plan anyone’s written up. Many choices initially seem crazy, but are actually pretty carefully considered. Plan A isn’t likely to happen, but pushing for something like this...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Buck Shlegeris
CEO of Redwood Research; AI safety researcher focused on AI control

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votes For and says:

I’m really excited this is out; I think it’s the best summary of the spectrum of possible plans for preventing catastrophe from AI.
AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Eli Lifland
AI Futures Project researcher writing on AI capability scaling, controlled takeoff, and comparative AI governance plans.

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votes For and says:

Excited to finally publish AI 2040: Plan A, our plan for international coordination to get to a great AI future. We’ve put a lot of work into this and I hope that it sparks alternative plans that bring us closer to treating superintelligence with the...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Romeo Dean
AI Futures Project researcher and author of the 2026 Plan A Verification Plan on enforceable international AI-development slowdowns.

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votes For and says:

Plan A is our vision of how we can make this go well if we rise to the occasion.
AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Vitalik Buterin
Ethereum cofounder; technologist

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votes For and says:

The 2040 plan is already much more open source friendly (even mandating it! yay). It also includes “mutually assured compute destruction” ideas which (if they work) effectively give one of 2-5 actors the ability to trigger a global compute winter – a...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Vladyslav Podoliako
Writer and publisher of Vlad's Newsletter, covering technology and business.

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votes For and says:

The escrow. My favorite clause. New Chinese datacenters get built in Canada. New American ones in Mongolia. If the deal collapses, each side destroys its own chips rather than let the rival seize them. The authors name it mutually assured compute des...
more AI Verified source (Jul 10, 2026)

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Scott Alexander
Author and psychiatrist

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votes For and says:

Plan A feels like our best hope to do something actually good.
AI Verified source (Jul 9, 2026)

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AI Futures Project
Nonprofit AI forecasting research group behind AI 2027 and Plan A; led by Daniel Kokotajlo.

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votes For and says:

Plan A is our positive vision for what should happen instead. In this scenario, humanity delays the development of superintelligence until 2040, makes all AI research public, allows dozens of companies globally to catch up to the frontier, and intent...
more AI Verified source (Jul 9, 2026)

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石部統久
Japanese writer publishing analysis of AI and governance under the name mototchen.

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votes For and says:

The purpose is to mutually possess the ability to destroy, thereby dissuading withdrawal.
Unverifiable source (Jul 10, 2026)

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Abstain (0)

Against (10)

Yoshimichi Kumon
Visiting researcher at Waseda University BFC and organizer of Logos Sovereign Intelligence.

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votes Against and says:

A doctrine whose trigger mechanism can be this thoroughly disputed cannot function as a deterrent. Deterrence requires certainty. MAD worked because both sides knew, with something close to certainty, what a launch would produce. MACD, as currently s...
more AI Verified source (Jul 19, 2026)

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Kyle Corbitt
AI entrepreneur; former OpenPipe CEO, former Y Combinator Startup School lead, and former Google software engineer.

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votes Against and says:

The tech development seems ~plausible but the politics feel quite naive. Like I just can’t see Canadian voters letting China construct thousands of datacenters in 2030, no matter how good the economics are. Esp if the pitch is “we chose you since you...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Timothy B. Lee
Technology journalist and writer of the Understanding AI newsletter.

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votes Against and says:

I struggle with what to say about the new AI 2040: Plan A website. It all seems so implausible to me that I’m not sure where to start. There’s an epistemic chasm between those who think superintelligence implies near-omnipotence and those (like me) w...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Maxwell Tabarrok
Economics PhD candidate at Harvard Business School and writer on economics and progress studies.

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votes Against and says:

The best plan is still “pause and let us figure out what to do”? Any credibility this policy might have had has been overtaken by events. What could we possibly have figured out about how to make Mythos safe if we had paused AI in 2023? So far, we’ve...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Ramez Naam
Science author and futurist

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votes Against and says:

These proposals violate at minimum the spirit of the 1st and 4th Amendments. This is well intentioned, from people who sincerely believe that runaway AI is a greater risk than, say, China’s oppression of millions of people today, or the ideologies th...
more AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Nate Soares
AI safety researcher; MIRI president

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votes Against and says:

I doubt their Plan A would work as written, but it’d have a chance of producing evidence that convinced world leaders to switch to Plan S, which I think has a shot.
AI Verified source (Jul 11, 2026)

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Dave Friedman
Writer on technology, economics, and geopolitical policy.

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votes Against and says:

The proposal to place Chinese datacenters in Canada and American datacenters in Mongolia illustrates the broader unreality. These countries are treated as strategically convenient geography rather than sovereign actors. Deliberately vulnerable infras...
more AI Verified source (Jul 10, 2026)

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Tom Davidson
AI governance researcher

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votes Against and says:

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 ...
more AI Verified source (Jul 10, 2026) 1 of 2

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Richard Ngo
AI researcher and writer on Bayesian epistemology and rationality

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votes Against and says:

I’ve been working with the AI Futures Project to critique and improve their AI 2040 scenario. Ultimately I still have serious disagreements with it. However, to their credit, the team asked me to write up my criticisms to be shared alongside the scen...
more AI Verified source (Jul 9, 2026)

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Zvi Mowshowitz
Writer and commentator on artificial intelligence, technology, and public policy.

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votes Against and says:

I am not endorsing the vision, courses of action suggested here or the predictions made, but I am endorsing 1. the idea that this is well-written, carefully considered, and says what those writing it sincerely believe, and that 2. you should read it ...
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