Xi Jinping flew to Washington to ask Donald Trump if maybe we could all work together on artificial intelligence. Trump said sure. Both men then returned to thinking about literally anything else.
This counts as diplomacy now. Two world leaders shake hands. They mention the phrase "AI cooperation." Reporters write it down. Your Robinhood account doesn't move. Nothing happens.
The meeting lasted long enough for both sides to agree that artificial intelligence is important and that someone should probably do something about it at some point. Groundbreaking stuff. Really earning that motorcade budget.
Here's what AI cooperation means in practice: absolutely f*cking nothing. China builds whatever it wants. America builds whatever it wants. Both countries spy on each other's research. Both countries accuse the other of stealing. Then they meet again in six months and issue another joint statement about the importance of collaboration.
Retail traders saw this headline and immediately started googling which AI stocks to buy. They will choose poorly. They always do. Probably something with "quantum" in the name that's actually just a shell company operating out of a PO box in Delaware.
The real tragedy is that Xi and Trump could cooperate on AI right now if they wanted to. They could agree that chatbots are annoying. They could agree that nobody asked for AI-generated poetry. They could agree that auto-complete keeps getting worse somehow. But no. They went with the vague diplomatic nothing-burger instead.
Both countries will now race to build the same technology faster than the other while pretending they're interested in safety guardrails and ethical frameworks. It's an arms race with extra steps and a press release.
Your portfolio doesn't care which country's robots become self-aware first.
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