  The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been introducing a certain
level of anxiety in research, business and also policy. Tensions are further
heightened by an AI race narrative which makes many stakeholders fear that they
might be missing out. Whether real or not, a belief in this narrative may be
detrimental as some stakeholders will feel obliged to cut corners on safety
precautions or ignore societal consequences. Starting from a game-theoretical
model describing an idealised technology race in a well-mixed world, here we
investigate how different interaction structures among race participants can
alter collective choices and requirements for regulatory actions. Our findings
indicate that, when participants portray a strong diversity in terms of
connections and peer-influence (e.g., when scale-free networks shape
interactions among parties), the conflicts that exist in homogeneous settings
are significantly reduced, thereby lessening the need for regulatory actions.
Furthermore, our results suggest that technology governance and regulation may
profit from the world's patent heterogeneity and inequality among firms and
nations to design and implement meticulous interventions on a minority of
participants capable of influencing an entire population towards an ethical and
sustainable use of AI.
