Tethics & Chill: Post-AGI Statecraft: The Geopolitics of Superintelligence with Tarun Chhabra
Superintelligence should be considered a live prospect by policy planners. We should be weighing its proximity, prospects for decisive strategic advantage, as well as prospects for restraint and coexistence with rival superintelligence.
Can the United States—and allies?—secure decisive strategic advantage? Can we safely test prospects for restraint and coexistence with rival superintelligence? How does statecraft work with omniscient systems?
In this session we will travel to the furthest horizon of geopolitics x AI, as well as explore more proximate challenges, including the more immediate dimensions of AI competition with China, the role of economic levers and export controls, and how to balance research speed with uncertain security risks.
To guide us in this journey, we’re excited to welcome Tarun Chhabra for our next Tethics & Chill breakfast in NYC, co-hosted with the Bench.
Tarun Chhabra is a special advisor to Anthropic leadership and previously was Anthropic’s head of national security policy. He served as deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security on the US National Security Council (NSC) from 2021 to 2025, and coordinated US strategies for technology competition with the People's Republic of China and technology partnerships with US allies and partners, particularly with respect to artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced biotechnologies, and quantum information science. He previously served as a director of strategic planning at the NSC, speechwriter to the secretary of defense, senior fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, and director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution.
We'll get started by 9:15am and have a chance to mingle with friends after hearing from Tarun.
Stay tethical,
Zoe, Matt, and Natalie
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Tethics & Chill is a private, off-the-record, invite-only discourse club for founders, funders, and operators all working on technologies that produce human agency, by the folks at Agency and ex/ante.
The Bench "culture x politics" is where restless organizers, creatives, misfits, sneakerheads, and policy nerds collide. Where podcasts get made, ideas sharpen, alliances form, and power builds.