Reflections from a national security event where technological ambition seemed to overshadow questions about humanity's future.
I recently attended a national security event at an Ivy League university, where leaders from technology, energy, finance, defense, and other industries gathered around a common objective: advancing national security through innovation, investment, and closer cooperation between government and the private sector.
The conversations covered government funding, procurement, technological innovation, and the development of national security capabilities. Yet beneath the language of innovation, patriotism, and a shared mission, I kept returning to a more uncomfortable question: how much of this ultimately serves to make the machinery of warfare more efficient, and how much serves to make human lives better?
Of course, the objectives were presented more elegantly, under the patriotic umbrella of a "common goal for people who want to do the right thing."
But who defines the right thing? And for whom?
I attended three of the five sessions held throughout the day. Much of what I heard focused on practical challenges and opportunities: how government bureaucracy slows innovation, how defense contractors can navigate the nearly trillion-dollar US defense budget, and how relationships with military personnel can help bridge communication gaps and accelerate procurement.
There were discussions about accessing government funding, attracting private investment, and overcoming institutional obstacles to bring new technologies into the national security ecosystem.
In one discussion, American taxpayers were jokingly thanked for subsidizing Ivy League educations, drawing chuckles from the audience.
The sessions operated under the Chatham House Rule, as we were repeatedly reminded. Participants could use the information shared but could not attribute remarks to identifiable individuals or organizations. Recording was also prohibited by the event's rules.
What struck me wasn't necessarily any single statement. It was the atmosphere and the collective priorities.
Here was a gathering of well-dressed, accomplished, influential people on an Ivy League campus, comfortably discussing how to access public funds, attract private capital, accelerate government procurement, and develop technologies in the name of national security.
Many seemed genuinely motivated by a sense of purpose. Some may sincerely believe that military superiority and technological dominance are necessary to prevent conflict, protect society, and preserve peace. There is a reasonable argument that deterrence can help prevent wars.
But there is also an important distinction between developing the capacity to win a conflict and creating the conditions that make conflict less likely in the first place.
I heard considerably more discussion of the former than the latter.
The race to build the future
The day concluded with a discussion involving representatives of Nvidia and OpenAI, two companies whose technologies are increasingly central to the future of artificial intelligence and computing.
The conversation addressed AI, semiconductor manufacturing, and their growing importance to national security.
Some of the technical challenges discussed were fascinating. Manufacturing increasingly advanced chips involves extraordinary engineering complexity and investments measured in billions of dollars. The capabilities being developed are remarkable.
Yet much of the conversation returned to a familiar theme: the technological race between the United States and China.
Will China win the race? Will the United States maintain its advantage? How can critical technologies be kept out of adversaries' hands?
These are legitimate national security questions. Countries have strategic interests, and technological dependence can create genuine vulnerabilities.
But I found myself increasingly frustrated by the premise underlying the discussion.
What exactly is the race? What does winning mean? And what happens after someone wins?
Is success measured by manufacturing the smallest chips? Building the most powerful AI systems? Operating the largest data centers? Maintaining military superiority? Generating the greatest returns for investors?
And where, in all these definitions of success, do ordinary people fit?
Technological superiority and human progress are not necessarily the same thing.
A country can lead the world in artificial intelligence while its citizens struggle to afford housing, healthcare, education, and basic necessities. It can develop extraordinary military capabilities while failing to address the underlying conditions that produce conflict.
Winning the technological race does not automatically mean winning a better future.
The questions that seemed harder to answer
Two questions from the concluding discussion stayed with me.
The first concerned when ordinary people would begin to see tangible benefits from the enormous investments being made in data centers.
The second concerned how society would cope with artificial intelligence's potentially disruptive effects on employment.
These are not peripheral questions. They concern the economic and social consequences of technologies that could reshape entire industries, labor markets, and communities.
I found the responses disappointing.
Historical comparisons were offered, including transitions involving printing technology and the evolution of recorded music from vinyl to digital formats.
Technological transitions are nothing new, of course. History is full of examples of industries being transformed, jobs disappearing, and new opportunities emerging.
But these comparisons felt inadequate.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to affect not just one industry or one category of workers, but a broad range of intellectual, creative, administrative, and technical activities simultaneously.
Its consequences may differ considerably from earlier technological transitions in scope, speed, and distribution.
Pointing to history doesn't answer how we should prepare for what comes next.
The question about data centers was equally important. These facilities consume substantial resources, including electricity, water, land, and capital. Communities may bear some of the costs associated with their development, while the economic benefits may be distributed unevenly.
What will ordinary people receive in return? Better public services? Lower costs? More economic opportunity? Improved healthcare and education? And when should they expect to see these benefits?
I left without hearing a clear, convincing answer.
That doesn't mean answers don't exist. Nor does it mean the individuals involved have never considered these questions.
But in a discussion about technologies that are supposedly building our future, I expected a more compelling articulation of what that future might look like.
Technological expertise is not the same as leadership
I left the event with a growing sense of disappointment.
Not because the technology isn't extraordinary. It is.
Not because government procurement is too slow. It may well be.
And not because competition between the United States and China is imaginary. The geopolitical tensions and strategic interests are real.
My disappointment came from the apparent disconnect between the sophistication of the technological ambitions being discussed and the limited attention given to their broader human consequences.
The conversations demonstrated considerable expertise in solving immediate technical and operational problems.
How do we manufacture more advanced semiconductors? How do we finance innovation? How do we accelerate procurement? How do we protect proprietary technologies and maintain competitive advantages?
These are difficult questions, and solving them requires talent, knowledge, and determination.
But they are largely questions of how.
What seemed missing was a serious examination of why.
What kind of society are we trying to create with these capabilities? How will the benefits be shared? What happens to workers whose skills become less valuable? What responsibilities do the companies developing these technologies have toward the communities and societies affected by them?
One reasonable response is that technology executives are responsible for building technologies, not designing public policy or resolving every social and economic consequence of innovation.
There is some truth to that.
A semiconductor engineer cannot be expected to solve unemployment, and an AI researcher cannot independently determine how societies should distribute the economic gains from automation.
But if those building transformative technologies are not responsible for anticipating their consequences, who is?
And are those people meaningfully represented in the rooms where investment priorities, technological strategies, and national security objectives are being decided?
Leadership, particularly at this scale, requires more than technical expertise or the ability to navigate funding and institutional structures.
It requires the capacity to connect immediate decisions with long-term consequences and to articulate a vision that extends beyond the next technological milestone or competitive advantage.
I did not hear that vision clearly articulated during the discussions I attended.
Progress toward what?
What troubles me most is the possibility that we have accepted technological advancement as an end in itself.
We build faster chips because we can. We develop more powerful AI because we can. We invest billions in infrastructure because we believe someone else will do it first if we don't.
And increasingly, we justify these decisions through the language of competition and national security.
The race becomes its own justification.
Yet we rarely seem to stop and ask whether winning that race will produce a society in which people are healthier, safer, more prosperous, more fulfilled, or more free.
Perhaps some of these technologies will deliver extraordinary benefits. AI could accelerate scientific discovery, improve medicine, expand access to education, and help address problems that have resisted human efforts for generations.
Those possibilities deserve investment and serious attention.
But technological capability alone does not guarantee positive outcomes. The direction of progress depends on the priorities, institutions, and decisions that guide its development.
A technology can be extraordinarily successful by commercial or military measures while delivering disappointing outcomes for much of society.
And that is why the absence of a clearly articulated human vision troubles me more than any particular technological challenge.
I attended only three of the day's five sessions, and I cannot claim that every participant shared the same priorities or that these questions were never addressed elsewhere.
But what I witnessed was enough to leave me concerned.
We have assembled remarkable talent, capital, institutional power, and technological capabilities. We have become exceptionally good at figuring out how to build increasingly powerful systems and how to finance, deploy, and defend them.
Yet I came away wondering whether we are putting nearly enough thought into what all this effort is ultimately supposed to achieve.
Perhaps the problem isn't that we lack the technology to build the future. It's that we've become so focused on the race to build it that we're no longer asking what kind of future we're building, or for whom.
And if the people and institutions shaping that future cannot clearly explain how their work will improve human lives, what reason do the rest of us have to trust that the future is in safe hands?
