I have to push back on this: China's cheap EVs and power prices are due to industrial policy on an epic scale which goes directly against the whole free market thing. I personally think industrial policy is a good thing, but you cannot have it both ways and not expect workers to get unhappy and vote against your interests when they have no more jobs.
replyTrue, and its what they are going to do with LLMs as well. We know their playbook by now as they've repeated it over and over again across different industries.
replyBut we can still protect domestic workers without screwing over consumers. Pure protectionism doesn't work, it'll only set us back and keep us behind. Just slapping on 100% tariffs or a complete import ban just lets domestic companies get lazy. The protectionism needs an expiry date so they can't hide behind it forever. We could also work to move supply chains out of adversarial nations and into friendly ones, but you know...that requires us to continue to have friends and allies.
A fully free market has been an illusion in the US for a very long time. We'd do well to do some of our own state-industrial planning.