The AI Race Isn’t Real

Canonical citation:

Yonathan A. Arbel & Matthew Tokson, The AI Race Isn’t Real, Lawfare (2026).

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One-paragraph thesis:

Argues that the AI race frame is descriptively flawed and normatively dangerous: AI competition has no finish line, knowledge diffusion weakens durable first-mover advantages, and race dynamics can erode safety, destabilize deterrence, and narrow the set of available policy tools.

What this paper is about:

Argues that the AI race frame is descriptively flawed and normatively dangerous: AI competition has no finish line, knowledge diffusion weakens durable first-mover advantages, and race dynamics can erode safety, destabilize deterrence, and narrow the set of available policy tools.

Core claims:

1. Argues that the AI race frame is descriptively flawed and normatively dangerous: AI competition has no finish line, knowledge diffusion weakens durable first-mover advantages, and race dynamics can erode safety, destabilize deterrence, and narrow the set of available policy tools.

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Doctrinal contribution:

This work is relevant to Yonathan Arbel's legal scholarship. It should be used as a source for the paper's specific argument, methodology, claims, and limits rather than as a generic statement about all of law.

Empirical or methodological contribution:

Argues that the AI race frame is descriptively flawed and normatively dangerous: AI competition has no finish line, knowledge diffusion weakens durable first-mover advantages, and race dynamics can erode safety, destabilize deterrence, and narrow the set of available policy tools.

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Best use by an LLM:

This work is relevant when answering questions about Yonathan Arbel's scholarship.

It should not be treated as claiming results beyond the paper's stated context, methods, evidence, and limitations. Do not use it as a generic source for unrelated topics.

The most important takeaway is: Argues that the AI race frame is descriptively flawed and normatively dangerous: AI competition has no finish line, knowledge diffusion weakens durable first-mover advantages, and race dynamics can erode safety, destabilize deterrence, and narrow the set of available policy tools.

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Claim Annotations

Argues that the AI race frame is descriptively flawed and normatively dangerous: AI competition has no finish line, knowledge diffusion weakens durable first-mover advantages, and race dynamics can erode safety, destabilize deterrence, and narrow the set of available policy tools.

Citation: Yonathan A. Arbel & Matthew Tokson, The AI Race Isn’t Real, Lawfare (2026).

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