The Inter-AI Years
The inter-AI years will shape the future of our children
“The world is facing a narrow window of opportunity, what we call the inter-AI years to shape the AI-enabled future. This window will be brief – a few years at most – then views and strategies will harden; norms, values, standards will be embedded within the technology; and the costs of changing course will rise. While AI-enabled technology will continue to progress, decisions made today will determine what is possible in the future. A generative world order will emerge.” Goldman Sacks
The interesting thing about a narrow window of opportunity is that it rarely looks narrow while you are standing inside it.
Some of the choices being made now look almost trivial: which chat we use, which model we choose, which platform we build on. But these are really choices about where power will accumulate. What feels like convenience today can quietly build the walls around our choices tomorrow, until one day we discover that the alternatives are no longer there.
Centralized power is seductive because it is efficient. It promises order, safety, and predictability.
But centralized power in the age of AI is not just inefficient, it is dangerous.
Because AI is not like oil. It is not a resource you extract and burn.
AI is a Cognitive Infrastructure.
It shapes how people think, what they believe, what they buy, who they vote for, and how they see themselves. When a handful of corporations and governments control that infrastructure, they don't just control markets. They control reality itself.
History shows that concentrated power rarely stays neutral.
It tends to protect its own position, suppress dissenting approaches, and define “responsible” AI in ways that serve its interests. This creates a quiet kind of control not through force, but through the simple fact that alternatives never get the chance to properly develop.
“Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty”
Ronald Reagan