Ben Buchanan: Superintelligence, Superpowers, and the Fate of the World

The first person to serve as White House special advisor for AI explains the choices we as a country will have to make about AI. The first person to serve as the White House special advisor for artificial intelligence comes to us with a message about the choices we as a country will have to make about AI. Humanity may soon create AI systems that outperform humans at virtually every cognitive task. Whoever wields that technology will gain a power unlike any in history. In The Bitter Struggle, Ben Buchanan, the first White House special advisor for artificial intelligence and currently an advisor to Anthropic, and Tantum Collins, who served on the National Security Council after five years at Google DeepMind, argue that the United States and its democratic allies must not lose this contest. But they say how democracies win matters most of all. Buchanan and Collins have shared the scenes inside the briefing rooms where AI CEOs privately warned about their own creations, in the Situation Room where Cabinet secretaries debated how to choke off China’s access to AI technology, and into the Oval Office, where they helped shape President Biden’s decisions. From semiconductor factories in Taiwan to city-sized data centers in America, they argue that a million chips may matter more than a million troops, AI progress has been so stunning and yet so predictable, and why the next few years may decide the next few decades. But inventing more powerful AI is only the beginning. Democracies must also deploy AI’s capabilities without surrendering their own values—and so far, they are failing. Join us to hear Buchanan describe how the deepest challenge is not the contest with autocracy but the conflict AI will force within democracies themselves. Every choice pits security against liberty, speed against caution, power against principle. This is the bitter struggle. Buchanan and Collins say democracies have every advantage they need to prevail—except, perhaps, the conviction to act. Notes Buchanan photo © 2026 Jacob Rosen; courtesy of the speaker. Speakers Ben Buchanan, Former White House Special Advisor for Artificial Intelligence; Dimitri Alperovitch Assistant Professor, John Hopkins University; Co-author, The Bitter Struggle: Superintelligence, Superpowers, and the Fate of the World In Conversation with Patrick McGee, Correspondent, Financial Times 6 p.m. doors open & check-in 6:30–7:30 p.m program 7:30 p.m. book signing (all times Pacific Time)