Stargate Rescues the Stars and Stripes

Radical AI development will save America

Among my friends, I'm the AI doomer. I'm the luddite sympathizer who believes AI is unlike every technology we've adapted to so far—that it poses unique challenges bound to knock us on our ass. Just skim my recent essay "What does it mean to get chipped?"

I'm also an optimist. I believe no species is better equipped to meet this challenge than humans today, and no country is more suited to set the tone of our approach than America.

Real headshot of Dom Farolino in front of Betsy Ross's masterpiece

In my circles, it's fashionable to deride the US for being #1. Some go as far as saying we need to be taken down a peg—that we don't need to be the superpower anymore, and that it's time we make room for others. They've got a point. We've done some ugly things—from coups to colonization, we've done just about anything to get our way.

But these people never consider who would take our place if we stepped aside. The leading contenders aren't exactly our Western allies; rather, we're neck and neck with only our most dangerous adversary, making it all the more necessary we maintain our position on the world stage. Just ask yourself: What kind of world do you want to live in—one where America leads and shapes the future, or one where China does?

I choose America. And more importantly, I think in the age of AI development, we're actually faced with this decision.

That's precisely why I, traditionally an AI doomer, am elated by President Trump's announcement of Project Stargate—a joint effort between OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle to invest $500 billion in American AI infrastructure and data centers. The initial equity is entirely from the private sector, but Stargate's teeth come from a raft of Executive Orders and emergency declarations ensuring that facilities can be built without being tied up in years of environmental impact studies, and that there's enough energy to meet the needs of the private investment. With this, Stargate paves the way for nimble, overhead-free development of the world's most disruptive technology.

Contrast this with with former President Biden's 11th hour thrust in the same direction. One of his parting actions was signing Executive Order 14141, Advancing United States Leadership in Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure, which directed agencies to bless 3 sites on Federal land upon which AI data centers and mandatory clean energy facilities can be built with an expedited permitting process. The catch? Solar energy must be prioritized, and the permitting process is still acknowledged to take longer than one full year, essentially burning 2025.

Given the stakes, Stargate might pan out to be the most progressive, forward-thinking investment a world leader has made to date, especially insofar as it forces an investment in energy solutions that inch us closer to a state of permanent abundance as a happy side effect. For example, consider Microsoft's move to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power their starved AI facilities—a move that without private industry interest might have never happened, leaving us further from abandoning fossil fuels, which show no sign of being replaced by solar & wind.

But putting energy aside, Project Stargate comes at a crucial time when many believe China is pulling ahead of the US in the development of AI, robotics, and drone technology. Whether this is true is subject to debate, but it's more than conceivable that without such a radical investment, or the federal government's willingness to let the technology develop freely, it would soon be indisputable. That world—one where America loses the title of global superpower because she couldn't get out of her own way—came closer to fruition than many realize.

When AI models were advancing at breakneck speed in 2023, the Biden administration revealed an appetite to regulate domestic AI development with Executive Order 14110, requiring the details of leading models to be shared confidentially with the federal government before ever reaching the public, and compelling them to comply with previous, controversial orders that may impede development. The oversight didn't stop there, according to venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who spoke out about private conversations with the Biden administration regarding centralizing control over AI models, thereby restraining their development.

Don't get me wrong, AI is scary, and attempts to contain or even pause it are entirely understandable. But AI is only as scary as it is useful, and hamstringing US technology in a theatrical thrust towards "safety" puts the whole world at risk since we can only slow down our progress, not our rivals'. If you're still not convinced, consider an analogy with nuclear weapons: most of us would prefer to live in a world without them, but since we can't stop our global adversaries from making them, even the pacifist is motivated to ensure our arsenal is vast, if for no other reason than to induce a stalemate and reduce the likelihood we ever touch it. Similarly, stifling US technology threatens America's position by letting our rivals leapfrog us, a fact apparently understood by President Trump when he repealed former President Biden's EO and uttered the words "Project Stargate" into the microphone for the first time.

AI comes with an unfathomable, yet surmountable, slew of ethical and safety issues that must be solved with humanity in mind. But for better or worse, it's here to stay—we can't put the genie back in the bottle, and as long as we're breaking new ground, that ground might as well be US soil. Here at home is where we're best poised to pursue the ideals of The Techno-Optimist Manifesto—nudging the world into a state of abundance and free energy—rather than begging for these from a superpower whose values are a photonegative of our own.

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This essay is not meant to be read as an endorsement of one political party, ideology, or leader over another. I mean to make the case that the development of US technology is the only priority, and that we cannot afford to stall that development.