🟡 AI doom and bloom
Semafor Technology · Semafor Technology · 2026-07-10
Semafor Technology's AI newsletter leads with the AI Futures Project's 'Plan A' proposal for US-China cooperative frontier AI pause to build safety scaffolding, and also covers Grok 4.5, Meta's Muse models, wearable data collection, and AI capital expenditure squeezing Big Tech free cash flow.
Appears in
Extraction
Topics: ai-safety-policyinternational-coordinationai-governanceai-product-launchesai-infrastructure
Claims
- The AI Futures Project's 'Plan A' advocates for a temporary US-China cooperative pause on frontier AI research to build safety infrastructure while existing AI capabilities drive years of economic growth.
- Current AI capabilities, even without further frontier development, are sufficient to generate substantial economic growth given adequate data-center infrastructure build-out.
- SpaceXAI and Cursor collaboratively released Grok 4.5 in a coding-focused partnership after beginning work together in April and announcing a $60 billion acquisition plan weeks earlier.
- Meta's Muse Image feature allows AI image generation using public Instagram photos without account holders' explicit permission, raising privacy and safety concerns.
- Big Tech companies' massive AI capital expenditures are collapsing free cash flow while memory chip and AI infrastructure vendors capture disproportionate value from the AI build-out.
Key quotes
"We're not exactly de-growthers. But if you want to actually benefit from that growth and abundance, you need to avoid the risks involved." — Daniel Kokotajlo
"Plan A pauses development for a couple of years, and has some pretty far-out ways of ensuring China and other countries don't cheat to get ahead."
"In other words, AI safety is not standing in the way of AI development and rapid economic growth. They can be the same thing."