Charles Hugh Smith on the AI race, innovation and open societies

Charles Hugh Smith: A lot of people are saying, "Wait a minute, does this mean China has got the lead in AI?"  I don't think it's a state or governments-run option here to say, "We're going to control the world's AI."  I think the dominance here is which economy is more open, more transparent, more open to sharing information and is going to allow the greatest number of people to start innovating with these new tools.  And so that's really what it boils down to.

Adam Taggart: How weird would it be if that country were China.  It's just not historically, culturally, those are not adjectives that are used around China.

Smith: What's interesting is the whole world has an equal opportunity here.  There's systemic issues here.  It's not just the software or the hardware.  It's which economy, as a system, is more open, more transparent, more adaptable, more flexible and is going to give rewards to somebody in their garage famously that comes up with a product that people love.

~ Charles Hugh Smith, "Did China's DeepSeek Just Pop the AI Stock Bubble?," Thoughtful Money, January 27, 2025

Charles Hugh Smith on counterparty risk and the dominos from the FTX collapse

The full exposure to the risks inherent in extreme leverage and illiquidity can be cloaked, buried in off-balance sheet assets and liabilities, etc., while pages of mind-numbing disclosures were duly signed by blinded-by-greed marks. 

These quasi-legal versions are just as prone to unraveling and collapse as the blatantly fraudulent varieties. Properly disclosed leverage and illiquidity are just as prone to unraveling as undisclosed leverage and illiquidity. 

Mismatches of duration, liquidity and risk are just as toxic to full-disclosure firms as they are to fraudulent firms. 

This is why we can predict the dominoes of FTX's financial fraud have yet to fall.  When there are mismatches in counterparty asset durations and liquidity, assets that theoretically cover loans that are called can't be sold or can only be sold at ruinous discounts.

~ Charles Hugh Smith, "FTX: The Dominoes of Financial Fraud Have Yet to Fall," OfTwoMinds.com, November 16, 2022