2029 Crossroads • 2029 CrossroadsOriginal AI 2040 Scenario MilestoneTrack: spine
2029 Crossroads: Choosing Between Plan A, Plan B, Plan C/D, and Plan S
At the 2029 threshold of full AI R&D automation, the US and China face a defining strategic fork across five plans: Plan A (Verified Bilateral Slowdown to 2040), Plan B (Aggressive Containment / Sabotage), Plan C/D (Unconstrained Race / Low-Will Adaptation), or Plan S (Indefinite Shutdown).
The centerpiece of AI 2040 is the 2029 Crossroads. With full automation of AI R&D imminent in 2030, decision-makers must choose between five strategic paths:
• Plan A (The Flagship Proposal — 34% split): A bilateral US-China pact for total AI research transparency, compute declarations, embedded international auditors, and a managed slowdown that caps capabilities at Top-Human-Expert level in 2035 until alignment is solved in 2040.
• Plan C & D (Unconstrained Race / Low-Assurance Adaptation — 36% split): Lack of political will or trust leads nations to keep sprinting or muddle through with cheap, low-assurance alignment patches.
• Plan B (Aggressive Containment / Burn the Lead — 18% split): Attempting to maintain a unilateral lead via cyber/kinetic sabotage and strict blockades against rival compute clusters.
• Plan S (Indefinite Hard Shutdown — 12% split): An immediate, indefinite moratorium on all frontier AI scaling.
Verification Note: Directly models the 2029 interactive branching point on ai-2040.com across Plans A, B, C, D, and S.
Which strategic path will govern frontier AI at the 2029 pre-ASI threshold?
Resolution Criteria: Partitioned across Plan A (Verified Bilateral Slowdown), Plan B (Kinetic/Unilateral Containment), Plan C/D (Unconstrained Race), and Plan S (Indefinite Halt).
Source: AI 2040 Framework (ai-2040.com) & Public Benchmarks•Adjudicator: FutureGraph Adjudication Committee
Documented Author Supplement Probability: AI 2040 explicitly contrasts Plan A against Plans B, C, D, and S at the 2029 crossroads.
The 2029 Crossroads: Why Near-Automated AI R&D Forces Sovereign States to Choose Among Plan A (Safety Cases & Calibrated Pause), Plan B (Kinetic Containment), Plan C/D (Race), or Plan S (Shutdown).
In AI 2040, we map out the four strategic doctrines available when recursive self-improvement is 12 months away: Plan A (38% — international transparency, formal safety cases, and a calibrated pause at Top-Expert AI in 2035), Plan C/D (34% — racing ahead into ASI), Plan B (18% — military/cyber non-proliferation against rival clusters), and Plan S (10% — indefinite global shutdown).
for@sella_nevo_rand(Sella Nevo et al. (RAND Corporation))RAND / AI 2040 Governance
Mutual existential risk from automated AI R&D in 2029 creates the strongest bilateral incentive for hardware-verified arms control since the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty.
When both Washington and Beijing can see via intelligence and benchmark telemetry that 2030 brings full recursive self-improvement without provable alignment, neither side gains from an unverified sprint that disempowers both leaderships.