Closing Thoughts

The barriers to AGI development have created an unprecedented concentration of power that threatens fundamental principles of democratic governance, economic opportunity, and human agency. The window for meaningful intervention to democratize AI development is rapidly closing. Once AGI capabilities advance beyond certain thresholds, the power asymmetries may become irreversible.

The path forward requires radical reimagination of how transformative technologies are developed, distributed and controlled. Traditional market mechanisms have failed to ensure broad participation in AGI development. Regulatory approaches designed for slower-moving industries cannot keep pace with AI advancement. New models that combine public investment, democratic governance, and global commons cooperation may be necessary to prevent the permanent concentration of intelligence in private hands.

The stakes could not be higher. The organization or small group of organizations that first develop AGI will possess unprecedented power to shape humanity's future. Current trajectories suggest this power will be exercised by a tiny elite accountable primarily to capital rather than humanity. Without dramatic intervention, the democratic ideals and human agency that defined the modern era may become casualties of the intelligence revolution.

The economic concentration of AI threatens resilience at a planetary scale. If a few actors dictate the pace, direction, and accessibility of AI, the collapse, corruption, or weaponization of their systems could have cascading effects on the global economy. In such a context, dependency is not just an economic vulnerability - it becomes a long term systemic risk for civilization.

Humanity risks entering a state of technological infantilization, where critical systems of thought, governance, and creativity are outsourced to centralized AGI. In such a world, humans cease to be active participants in shaping intelligence, becoming instead dependent clients of opaque infrastructures. The result is disempowerment - a fragile civilization tethered to external systems it did not participate in building or cannot fully control or understand.

The gatekeeping & closed AGI development represents not just a technological or economic challenge but an existential threat to human freedom and dignity. The concentration of intelligence in few hands may create power asymmetries that no future reform can reverse. The time for action is now, before the capability gaps become unbridgeable and the future becomes the permanent property of a technological oligarchy.