Yishan Wong, former Reddit CEO, said on X that “pacing the frontier” is the “sane thing” to do.
Core to Wong’s take is that American skepticism toward cooperating with China stems from failing to see Chinese people and their government as “real people, with equally valid and real desires, dreams, and actual human existence.” This is a blind spot that distorts US strategic judgment, he added.
He drew a Cold War parallel, arguing China has historically said it would disarm only once the US matched its (lower) warhead count — so today, the party that’s ahead should move first to slow down, not demand the trailing party stop.
He also disputed that China is close to the frontier, citing its reliance on distilling US models and lack of leading-edge chips.
“There is, overall, strong willingness to work together there — cynically, because working together is how you get rich, and Chinese people just want everyone to get rich; war does not make everyone rich,” Wong wrote.
“But the US should stop being naive and realize that when it comes to AI it has to take the first step in extending the bridge. This announcement and the similar one from OpenAI a couple weeks ago are the right start,” Wong wrote of Amodei’s position.
