The article argues that recent executive overreach and politicization have severely undermined established norms of U.S. civil-military relations. To restore professional standards, the incoming Congress must actively exercise its oversight powers, moving beyond mere criticism to demanding transparency in defense policy and personnel decisions. Key reforms include enforcing meritocratic promotion processes, requiring documented justification for senior officer removals, and preventing the partisan use of the military. These actions are crucial for bolstering public trust and ensuring the military remains a nonpartisan instrument of civilian control.
The AI revolution threatens a ‘token divide’
English Summary
The AI revolution threatens a 'token divide,' a more complex form of inequality than the historical digital divide, as access to intelligence is now measured and sold via computational tokens. This divide is exacerbated because AI capability is constantly advancing (the 'frontier effect'), meaning that even falling per-token prices do not solve the core problem of relative inequality. The paper argues that traditional subsidies, which worked for broadband, are ineffective because AI costs are per-use and the marginal cost never approaches zero. Consequently, the concentration of advanced computational infrastructure and the escalating cost of frontier models will deepen the divide, favoring large, well-resourced organizations and creating significant competitive disadvantages for smaller entities.
中文摘要
人工智慧革命威脅著一種「代幣鴻溝」（token divide），這是一種比歷史上的數位鴻溝更複雜的不平等形式，因為現在獲取智慧的能力是透過計算代幣進行衡量和銷售的。這種鴻溝之所以惡化，是因為AI能力持續進步（即「前沿效應」），這意味著即使每代幣的價格下跌，也無法解決相對不平等的核心問題。本文論述，傳統的補貼機制，如適用於寬頻的補貼，對AI是無效的，因為AI的成本是按使用量計費，且邊際成本永遠不會接近零。因此，先進計算基礎設施的集中化，以及前沿模型不斷上升的成本，將會加深這種鴻溝，使資源雄厚的大型組織受益，並為小型實體帶來顯著的競爭劣勢。
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