The Rest Is Politics: Leading 188. Will AI Give China or the US Total Power? (William MacAskill)
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May 10, 2026 
William MacAskill, philosopher and effective altruism advocate, explores AI, global power and longtermist priorities. He discusses how rapid AI automation could concentrate economic and military might, the risks of fleets of autonomous weapons under single control, and how democracies might use chip supply chains and policy coordination to blunt runaway advantage.
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Proximity Doesn't Change Moral Duty
- Effective altruism equates saving a visible drowning child with helping distant children via cost-effective donations.
- MacAskill uses the pond thought experiment to argue moral duty doesn't depend on proximity or salience.
Commit To A Giving Pledge To Scale Impact
- Pledge a fixed percentage of income to effective charities to increase impact and personal purpose.
- MacAskill follows a Giving What We Can pledge, living on ~£32,000 post-tax and donating the rest to high-impact causes.
Sam Bankman-Fried Donations Caused Net Harm
- MacAskill recounts being deceived by Sam Bankman-Fried, whose donations later had to be returned.
- He says charities lost money once bankruptcy clawed back donations and legal costs and reputational harm followed.