Marc Andreessen’s plan for AI competition
Key takeaways from Marc Andreessen’s June 2023 essay, “What Is To Be Done?” on how governments should approach artificial intelligence:
- Let major AI companies build quickly: Andreessen argues that large AI companies should be allowed to develop their systems aggressively, while being prevented from using regulation to create protected cartels or achieve regulatory capture. In his view, government-granted insulation from competition would reduce the benefits of companies that are among the most important technological businesses of the modern economy.
- Keep the market open to start-ups: AI start-ups should be free to compete without either special protection from larger incumbents or government assistance. Even when a start-up does not ultimately succeed, Andreessen argues that its presence can motivate larger companies to improve, leaving consumers and society better off.
- Remove barriers to open-source AI: He proposes that open-source AI should be allowed to proliferate and compete with both large companies and start-ups. Beyond commercial competition, he presents open source as an educational and access mechanism that could help people around the world learn to build and use AI regardless of their financial resources.
- Use AI defensively: To address harmful uses, Andreessen calls for governments and private companies to work together on defensive capabilities. He extends this beyond AI-specific threats to problems such as malnutrition, disease and climate change, arguing that AI should be treated as a tool for solving major societal challenges rather than only as a source of risk.
- Compete globally: The essay also frames AI leadership as a geopolitical contest. Andreessen advocates close coordination between Western governments, scientific institutions and private companies to achieve global leadership over China, while ending with a broader call to build rather than slow technological progress.
The argument combines a strong pro-innovation position with opposition to incumbent protection. Its central policy distinction is between allowing rapid technical development and allowing companies to use public policy to suppress competition.
Read more: Marc Andreessen on X · Wikimedia Commons image
