"Domination or Compassion - America’s AI Action Plan in a Multipolar World"

"Domination or Compassion - America’s AI Action Plan in a Multipolar World"

The "America’s AI Action Plan," unveiled in July 2025 by the Trump administration, is a comprehensive and forceful blueprint for technological supremacy. Framed as a race against global adversaries—particularly China—it positions artificial intelligence as the next great arena of geopolitical and economic rivalry. The policy promises an AI-driven renaissance, industrial revitalization, and global leadership under a distinctly American banner. But beneath the aspirations lies a doctrine that is assertive, unilateralist, and infused with economic and ideological nationalism.

America has been leading the globe, mostly in a perceivable humane manner, and countries have often looked to the USA for leadership. The new narrative totally belies the warmth and compassion. It is an example of a cold hand remorselessly displacing all. The Action Plan risks breaking with the moral undercurrent of leadership that once inspired the world—by offering power, but not partnership; capability, but not community; and innovation, but not inclusion.

Let us analyze the philosophical and structural implications of the Action Plan in the context of global equity, multipolar diplomacy, and the moral responsibilities of technological power.

I. From Vision to Verdict: The Tone of Triumph

The opening paragraph of the AI Action Plan states that it is a "national security imperative" for the United States to achieve "unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance." The emphasis is not on cooperation, equity, or multilateral development, but on supremacy—“winning the race.”

Such rhetoric is not just symbolic; it frames AI as a strategic battleground, akin to nuclear weapons or space technology. Yet, unlike those domains, AI is embedded in civil societies, educational systems, healthcare infrastructure, and communication platforms. Its stakes are not merely geopolitical—they are existential, ethical, and social.

Instead of extending America’s traditional leadership role as a global partner in shared development, the Action Plan adopts a “gold standard or go home” philosophy. This zero-sum framing narrows the space for collaboration, especially with countries that cannot match the scale or capital of the U.S. tech ecosystem.

II. Technonationalism and the Myth of the 'Free' AI Market

Despite its frequent invocation of “innovation,” the Plan is laden with industrial protectionism. It seeks to:

• Export American AI to allies while excluding others
• Use economic diplomacy to build a techno-aligned coalition
• Deny semiconductor and compute resources to others
• Control open-source AI models through commercial licensing and security reviews

This undermines the ethos of a free and democratic internet. The emphasis on reshoring semiconductor production, building hyper-national data centers, and enforcing export controls is not simply strategic; it is a remapping of the digital world under U.S. jurisdiction.

While geopolitical caution is justifiable, especially in national defense and cybersecurity, the expansive reach of these controls suggests a desire to dominate global infrastructure, not merely secure it.

What’s missing is nuance: instead of building safeguards for collaborative innovation or frameworks for ethical interoperability, the plan constructs firewalls and draws digital iron curtains.

III. The Rhetoric of Dominance vs. the Ethics of Inclusion - The Elimination of Ethical Pluralism

From the outset, the AI Action Plan frames global AI development as a race akin to the Cold War-era Space Race: a zero-sum contest between nation-states, especially the United States and China. It asserts that “whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards,” and refers to the goal of “unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance.”

This vocabulary of conquest raises a critical ethical concern. In a multipolar and interconnected world, should AI be built as an instrument of national dominance or as a collaborative tool for the global good?

By focusing almost exclusively on American interests and dismissing multilateral regulatory frameworks as “burdensome” or ideologically biased, the Plan undermines the possibility of building a globally inclusive AI regime. AI is not merely a geopolitical tool but a planetary force with the capacity to solve—or exacerbate—global issues, including hunger, disease, displacement, and conflict.

The Plan does not mention cooperation with developing countries, global education initiatives, or support for AI democratization in the Global South. This is a glaring omission given that inclusive AI must address the needs of children in war-torn countries, smallholder farmers, and displaced populations—those whose futures hang in the balance amid technological revolutions.

The Plan’s directive to eliminate references to diversity, equity, inclusion, and climate change from federal AI risk frameworks is troubling. It rebrands these critical values as ideological “biases” to be purged.

In doing so, it:

• Disregards the structural inequalities embedded in training data
• Ignores marginalized communities disproportionately affected by automation and surveillance
• Undermines the foundational work of AI ethicists globally who advocate for responsible, inclusive design

Such revisions sever AI policy from broader social and environmental responsibilities. The removal of ethical pluralism from the technological decision-making space sends a signal: AI must reflect power, not principle.

This represents a stark departure from previous U.S. efforts—under administrations of both parties—that sought to embed civil rights, labor protections, and environmental sustainability in the governance of emerging technologies.

IV. AI for Whom? Workers, or Corporations?

The Action Plan brands itself as “worker-first,” but the policy prescriptions tell a different story. It centers job retraining, tax-free incentives for employers, and flexible apprenticeship programs. However, it does not guarantee labor protections, union consultation, or wage security in the face of automation.

Crucially, the Plan:

• Frames worker adaptation as an individual responsibility, not a structural challenge
• Leaves out global labor displacement caused by American AI exports
• Emphasizes productivity over well-being, and efficiency over equity

Rather than protecting work, the document celebrates how AI will "transform how work gets done," often in ways that erode job stability and deepen class divisions.

In a global context, where millions of low-income workers depend on jobs vulnerable to AI, this model risks exacerbating poverty and instability. Ethical leadership would require America not only to retrain its own workforce but also to co-invest in global labor transformation.

V. A Technological Cold Front: Infrastructure as Ideological Territory

America’s AI infrastructure vision is expansive: build hyperscale data centers, revive the semiconductor industry, upgrade the grid, and militarize compute environments. All admirable goals included multilateral cooperation.

But here again, we see exclusion:

• No mention of joint development zones with the Global South
• No digital capacity-building for lower-income nations
• No cooperative investment fund akin to a “Digital Bretton Woods”

Instead, the U.S. seeks to export infrastructure in return for political alignment. This economic diplomacy amounts to techno-leverage—using AI to solidify global alliances on Washington’s terms.

The contrast with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, specifically the Digital Silk Road, is instructive. While Beijing’s model has its own challenges, it at least offers financing, training, and affordable infrastructure to developing countries. The U.S. Plan, by contrast, is heavy on export control and light on digital equity.

VI. Humanitarian Absence: Where is AI for Peace?

Perhaps the most jarring absence in the entire document is any reference to peacebuilding, humanitarian AI, or ethical solidarity. Nowhere does it discuss:

• AI in climate adaptation
• Famine prediction models for Sub-Saharan Africa
• Language models for underserved dialects
• Healthcare AI for refugees
• Educational bots for conflict zones

In a world of 100 million forcibly displaced people and billions living in digital poverty, the absence of humanitarian AI speaks volumes. It reflects a blindness to suffering and a retreat from global stewardship.

This is not just a missed opportunity—it is a moral failure.

VII. Global Governance: De-legitimizing the Multilateral

The Plan is openly critical of multilateral bodies like the UN, OECD, and G20 when their frameworks differ from “American values.” Instead, it promotes:

• Direct bilateral deals with allies
• Technological bloc formation (e.g., export-only AI stacks)
• Use of economic tools like secondary tariffs to punish non-compliance

This model doesn’t reform the global AI governance system; it sidelines it.

Instead of co-authoring global standards, the U.S. aims to dominate them. Yet the AI future must be polycentric. A multipolar world requires multipolar ethics, diverse languages, and culturally contextualized models—not just American LLMs repackaged for the global stage.

VIII. Multipolarity Demands Multiperspectivity

AI is not just a technology; it is an epistemology. It encodes worldviews, value systems, and social hierarchies. A nation that seeks to export only its technological edge without embracing its moral responsibility risks becoming a digital empire.

In contrast, a multipolar world demands:

• Cooperative AI: shared protocols, co-authored datasets, multilingual training
• Reciprocal AI: value given back to the communities from whom data is derived
• Ecological AI: systems built with planetary constraints in mind
• Peaceful AI: technologies that prevent rather than provoke conflict

Such an orientation would align more closely with America’s historical moral leadership, as seen in its role in the Marshall Plan, global vaccination efforts, and promotion of internet openness.

The challenge is not to cede leadership but to reimagine it—not as conquest, but as convening.

From Cold Hand to Warm Heart

The "America’s AI Action Plan" is a powerful document that demonstrates strategic foresight, technological ambition, and state capacity. Every country must have it. But it is also a document of exclusion, dominance, and short-sighted nationalism. It sidelines global cooperation in favor of competitive supremacy, undercuts environmental and labor ethics, and remains indifferent to the suffering of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

In a world where millions of children are still hungry and countless communities remain digitally excluded, AI cannot be just another instrument of statecraft or market conquest. It must be a force for shared human dignity. America, with its resources and innovation power, has the opportunity to lead—not just by might, but by moral imagination.

It outlines how to win, but not how to heal. It plans for supremacy, but not for solidarity. It envisions power, but not peace. We find algorithms without empathy. Growth without grace. It is time for a new AI narrative: one of compassion, not conquest. For in a world ravaged by conflict, ecological collapse, and inequality, the true race is not for domination—it is for our shared humanity.

America’s AI Action Plan is a document of great technical vision but limited moral imagination. If America wishes to lead the AI century, it must rediscover its moral compass. Not just build AI systems, but cultivate AI societies. Not just win the race, but define its purpose. America has been great; it has to be greater every day. It need not stoop low to find greatness for itself.