Seeking Stability in the Competition for AI Advantage

Commentary on Superintelligence Strategy by Dan Hendrycks, Eric Schmidt, and Alexandr Wang

Authors

  • Iskander Rehman RAND, American Foreign Policy Council
  • Karl P. Mueller Senior Political Scientist; Faculty Member, Pardee RAND Graduate School
  • Michael J. Mazarr Senior Political Scientist and Professor of Policy Analysis

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70777/si.v2i1.14023

Keywords:

mutual assured destruction, mutual assured ai malfunction, nuclear deterrence, ai strategy, ai realpolitik, artificial general intelligence, superintelligence, ai arms race, great powers conflict

Abstract

In an important new report, Superintelligence Strategy, Dan Hendrycks, Eric Schmidt, and Alexandr Wang offer a bold vision for how the United States and China could compete securely and safely as they develop increasingly capable artificial intelligence (AI). The authors aim to synthesize national security imperatives, economic competitiveness, and AI governance into a coherent framework for urgent government action. Few experts have offered comprehensive strategies for managing the accelerating development of AI, so this essay makes a critical contribution to advancing the AI policy debate.

Many of the paper's recommendations are both sound and timely. Its most provocative proposal is a new concept to avert competition leading to instability among leading AI states that the authors dub “mutually assured AI malfunction,” or MAIM, analogizing it to nuclear mutual assured destruction (MAD). Under MAIM, they argue, “any state's aggressive bid for unilateral AI dominance is met with preventive sabotage by its rivals.” Although it is valuable to compare the nuclear and AI revolutions in search of instructive parallels and insights, the differences between the technologies and their respective ecosystems have deep strategic implications. Taking these into account, we have concerns regarding both the practical viability of the MAIM concept as an approach to overcoming instability risks in the AI race and the potential escalatory dangers that could follow from its core prescriptions.

Author Biographies

Iskander Rehman, RAND, American Foreign Policy Council

Iskander Rehman joined AFPC as a Senior Fellow for Strategic Studies in July 2020. His work focuses on applied history, grand strategy, and US defense strategy in Asia.

Dr. Rehman is also the founder of the Rochambeau Dialogue, a Track 1.5 Franco-U.S. defense dialogue held every year in Newport, RI.

Prior to joining AFPC, Dr. Rehman was the Senior Fellow for International Relations at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. Over the course of his career, he has also held fellowships at the Brookings Institution, at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Dr. Rehman has also lived and worked in India, holding visiting fellowships at the Observer Research Foundation and at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, both in New Delhi.

He has published a number of think tank monographs, book chapters, and articles in journals such as Survival, The Washington Quarterly, The Naval War College Review, Asian Security,  India Review, and Texas National Security Review. He is a contributing editor for War on the Rocks, and his work has featured or been cited in The Guardian, The American Interest, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Indian Express, Le Monde, The Diplomat, The National Interest, and BBC World, amongst others.

Dr. Rehman holds a BA, Masters of Science, Masters of Research (MRes) and Ph.D. in Political Science (with distinction and a specialization in Asia Studies) from the Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) in Paris, France.

Karl P. Mueller, Senior Political Scientist; Faculty Member, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Karl P. Mueller is a senior political scientist at RAND and a faculty member in the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He specializes in research related to military and national security strategy, particularly coercion, deterrence, and escalation.

Mueller has written and lectured on a wide variety of subjects, including airpower theory, grand strategy, strategic competition, economic sanctions, nuclear weapons, Baltic and Nordic defense issues, space deterrence, and wargaming. Among his unclassified RAND publications are Revisiting RAND’s Russia Wargames after the Ukraine Invasion (2023), Pathways to Russian Escalation Against NATO from the Ukraine War (2022), The Air War Against the Islamic State (2021), Innovation in the United States Air Force: Evidence from Six Cases (2016), Precision and Purpose: Airpower in the Libyan Civil War (2015), Denying Flight: Strategic Options for Employing No-Fly Zones (2013), Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century (2008), and Striking First: Preemptive and Preventive Attack in U.S. National Security Policy (2006).

His current projects focus on the strategic implications of advanced artifiical intelligence, the future of nuclear deterrence, defense strategies for middle powers and small states, and developing expert-adjudicated wargames for examining future conflict scenarios in Europe and Asia.

Before joining RAND in 2001, Mueller was a professor of comparative military studies at the U.S. Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS). He earned his Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University and his B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago .

Michael J. Mazarr, Senior Political Scientist and Professor of Policy Analysis

Michael J. Mazarr is a senior political scientist at RAND and a professor of policy analysis at Pardee RAND Graduate School. Previously, he worked at the U.S. National War College, where he was professor and associate dean of academics; as president of the Henry L. Stimson Center; senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; senior defense aide on Capitol Hill; and as a special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His primary interests are U.S. defense policy and force structure, disinformation and information manipulation, East Asian security, nuclear weapons and deterrence, and judgment and decisionmaking under uncertainty. Mazarr holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Maryland.

References

Dan Hendrycks, Eric Schmidt, and Alexandr Wang, Superintelligence Strategy. arXiv:2503.05628v1

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Published

2025-03-19

How to Cite

Rehman, I., Mueller, K. P., & Mazarr, M. J. (2025). Seeking Stability in the Competition for AI Advantage : Commentary on Superintelligence Strategy by Dan Hendrycks, Eric Schmidt, and Alexandr Wang. SuperIntelligence - Robotics - Safety & Alignment, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.70777/si.v2i1.14023

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2025): Large Language Models I

Section

Commentary

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Copyright (c) 2025 Iskander Rehman, Karl P. Mueller, Michael J. Mazarr