The core point, Kapoor says, is that we need to start differentiating between the rapid development of AI methods—the flashy and impressive displays of what AI can do in the lab—and what comes from the actual applications of AI, which in historical examples of other technologies lag behind by decades. It has the capacity to either help or hurt inequality, labor markets, the free press, and democratic backsliding, depending on how it's deployed, he says. There’s one alarming deployment of AI that the authors leave out, though: the use of AI by militaries. That, of course, is picking up rapidly, raising alarms that life and death decisions are increasingly being aided by AI. In their paper, the two authors refer to US-China “AI arms race” rhetoric as “shrill.”