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Johan's avatar

The tech industry’s embrace of their Ruler’s AI agenda isn’t about innovation, it’s about ethics abandoned. What we’re watching is the behavioral mechanics of cruelty turned into policy: deregulation as domination, spectacle as distraction, and suffering normalized as the cost of doing business.

As I argued in The World Ahead 2026, America’s operating system has shifted…institutions no longer reward competence or law, they reward manipulation and rent‑seeking.

AI is being treated not as a tool for progress but as a bubble to be inflated, a theater for insiders to consolidate wealth while the public is left exposed to collapse.

This isn’t innovation, it’s extraction. And until ethics are restored as the baseline, every “deal” will be a deal with cruelty.

—Johan

Chris Fox's avatar

Thank you for an excellent analysis of the troubled and scary AI situation.

El Generico II's avatar

When Dems take back the house, Jeffries should not be Leader. I don’t think he’s actually aware of the moment we’re in and is therefore not ready for it.

Mark In Colorado's avatar

The quote below is from fiction, but it reminds me of the lack of any moral dialogue on AI:

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The Terminator: In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

Sarah Connor: Skynet fights back.

The Terminator: Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia.

John Connor: Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now?

The Terminator: Because Skynet knows that the Russian counterattack will eliminate its enemies over here.

In today’s dollars, the gross revenue of that movie would be $1.25 billion. Beyond the action, did no one get the theme that we should be asking about what AI means to humanity?

Lisa Nystrom's avatar

Be careful what you wish for… you just may get it.👍This is a no-brainer.🙄

David J. Sharp's avatar

Well, of course these tech billionaires work hard! Outfitting yachts, propping up neonazis and other bigots, screwing both customer and employee alike.

Susan Cox's avatar

Great article. And of course Jeffries is all in on AI. Money from donors is his biggest concern.

. And of course.

David J. Sharp's avatar

The world’s laziest leader encourages his cult to rely on AI … cuz thinking for oneself is bad.

Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

Especially when one's opponents persist in doing it!

David J. Sharp's avatar

How dare they? Off with their heads!

Ed Walker's avatar

What will burst the AI bubble?

Law suits by grieving parents whose children were led to suicide by chatbots?

People infuriated by AI driven increases in electricity bills?

Politicians damaged by repulsive AI images on social media?

Workers fired so filthy rich shareholders can suck up a few more bucks?

Or will AI make us so stupid we think this is normal?

Sally Richman's avatar

Effective local and state resistance to the construction of data centers that use extreme amounts of electric power and water, starving the local communities and nullifying efforts to address the climate crisis. This is the reason Trump issued the EO and ordered the DOJ to kill local resistance.

David J. Sharp's avatar

Cosseting a liar, rapist and probable pedophile brings honor to this country and oneself, says the men whose billions has brought neither wisdom nor courage.

Dayna Wolhart's avatar

AI is not a force for good

DR Darke's avatar

"A comprehensive anti-corruption, anti-oligarchy, pro-consumer movement would inevitably target the tech industry and its indifference to the harms it creates. Such a movement could be incredibly potent, and the tech barons would have no one to blame but themselves."

Yeah, but too many Democrats like Schmuck Schumer, Notorious P-Lousy, CryptoBro Hakeem Jeffries, and Hillary Rodham Clinton are in the pockets of the Broligarchs already, and want to have pride of place back in them! Only DECENT Progressive Democrats like AOC, Jasmine Crockett and Bernie Sanders are capable of being all these scum to heel....

Alexandra's avatar

Read More Everything Forever. These billionaires are determined to make their adolescent sci-fi fantasies into reality.

Ray Zielinski's avatar

With apologies to Shakespeare, first thing we do, let’s kill all the broligarchs.