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The Winning Essays for the Big Questions About AI

The article announces the winners of a blog prize focused on big questions about AI, featuring essays on preventing pandemics, adapting to AI-driven automation, and lessons from Hong Kong's MTR business model.

Background

- Dwarkesh Patel runs a popular tech/AI podcast and newsletter. He recently launched a "Big Questions About AI" essay contest with prize money, inviting readers to answer fundamental questions about AI's long-term impact. - The three winning essays cover drastically different topics: (1) using AI and mRNA to wipe out all future pandemic risks, (2) the economic argument for letting AI automate jobs without resistance, and (3) lessons from Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway—which is famously profitable and efficient thanks to a "rail + property" development model—as a template for how to build AI infrastructure. - The essay on Hong Kong MTR matters because it proposes a concrete, non-obvious funding mechanism for large AI projects: let companies capture the land-value upside of AI-driven development, similar to how the MTR profits from real estate near its stations. - These winners reflect a broader debate in tech circles: whether AI is an existential risk to be managed, an economic revolution to be embraced, or a large infrastructure project to be funded cleverly.

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The Winning Essays for the Big Questions About AI

Background

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