Comment by seanmcdirmid

If you think about it in terms of game theory, economies that buy and use the best tools can out compete the ones that don't. As long as you have tools that are just as good, this doesn't matter, but as soon as your competitors have better tools, you have to catch up or become irrelevant. China doesn't use ChatGPT, but they have their own AI so whatever, America doesn't use WeChat, but they have WhatsApp so whatever. America doesn't use QR codes for mobile payments like China does but they have credit cards and NFC tap to pay everywhere, so again, not going to create much difference. In fact, before I moved to China in 2007, I already gave up on cash, but had to re-adopt it again while living in China, only to stop using it again when I left in 2016, and on my recent trip in April 2025, I finally could go around and not use cash (like the USA in 2007)!

Drone tech probably gives China more of an advantage of Quantum computing in military applications, which everyone is still scratching their head about and anyways...is just a better form of encryption. AI is still up in the air, China still can't economically produce their own high end GPUs, while America can't be bothered to develop infrastructure and skills for rare earths, etc...

But if America and Europe cripples themselves in AI development via rigid copyright rules, ya, its a complete win for China.