Let me begin by thanking TED Talk and, in particular, Chris Meah for this brief but essential contribution to what is one of the most pressing issues of our time. I think you should watch this 15-minute clip in its entirety if you haven’t already. For the record, this series of posts is not a technical overview or an attempt to judge the technology on its technical merit.
The aim instead is to explore the potential societal/geopolitical impact of what is the equivalent of leaving a five-year-old child in a room full of people with a loaded gun and hoping everything will be OK.
If you haven’t read PART ONE, which is a preface to this short series of posts, please click here to catch up.
As a solution provider and someone who signed up to explore ChatGPT on day one, along with the various other competitors as they have come along, I wanted to understand what potential impact it would have on me as a web app developer. My aim in this instance is to examine the technology as it relates to the everyday life of the average global citizen, with a focus on the US, to explore not only its impact on everyday life but also on the fractured political landscape Americans are currently forced to inhabit.
I want to begin our journey into this technological revolution with what was OpenAI’s original mission statement:
“to advance artificial intelligence in a way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return”
In contrast, the new mission statement reads:
“to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity”
Their new mission allegedly guides all aspects of the organisation, including both its non-profit Foundation and the for-profit Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) it controls. As with all things initially designed for the greater good, it doesn’t take long before the search for profit contaminates the objective. ChatGPT was launched on November 20th 2020, and just five years later, it is part of a group of corporations, interlinked with a joint mission of profit maximisation and an unofficial coalition now propping up the stock market on a promise of endless riches.
The Trump administration campaigned and continues to paint those not supporting their tyranny agenda as liberal ‘elites’. Maybe it’s time to explore who the elites really are?
The top 1%: own $26 trillion (50% of all equities and mutual funds)
** America’s Richest 0.1% (134,000 households) own $11 trillion in equities, their largest asset class.
** This is worth more than the total combined wealth assets of the bottom 50% (66.6 million households).
The bottom 50% own just $0.5 trillion (1% all equities and mutual funds)
** The bottom 50%’s largest category of wealth is real estate, most likely their primary homes.
** source (visualcapitalist.com)
This is why the stock market is totally disconnected from the real world, except for the top 10% and those fortunate enough to hold 401(k)s. It is also worth noting that the wealth of the super-rich is largely liquid. They can easily sell stocks and convert them to cash, whereas the bottom 50%'s wealth is mostly in housing and durable goods. These are much harder to sell during times of economic stress. It’s a simple fact that wealth accumulation in the U.S. overwhelmingly favours those who own corporate stocks, a segment dominated by only the wealthiest in American society.
The important point I am making here, is that it’s a misrepresentation to state that AI will ‘benefit all of humanity’; it’s like saying trickle-down economics works, when we know it's a lie and it’s all about the rich stealing from the bottom and the middle. Any benefit to society will be merely a byproduct of generating trillions of dollars for the top 1%. In terms of any equitable societal reward, the bottom 99% are left to bring a thought and a prayer to a gunfight, just as they did in 2008, while unwittingly providing a safety net should it all go wrong.
We are living in a Wild West scenario with no oversight and zero regulation. Indeed, the Trump administration is willing to throw anyone and everything under the bus who dares to stand in the way of what it believes is the holy grail that is AI Tech Stack dominance. So before we even talk about what AI can do, it’s clear that whatever that might be will be delivered at enormous environmental cost, but they don’t care.
It’s almost impossible to approach this assessment from an apolitical perspective, given that those who are funding the technology have clearly chosen a political horse in this race. However, I plan to approach it with an open mind and a sense of fairness, as I understand this is a race of global consequence. For the US, there is no plan B, because beyond AI stocks, the US economy is not growing at a level sufficient to sustain a year-end debt-to-GDP ratio of 125.4%. The US is now carrying $38 trillion in debt, with Trump adding another $2 trillion in just the first quarter of his new term. It’s a one-shot deal, a roll of the dice that the US can’t afford to lose.
The critical requirement here is regulation, and the chances of that in the short- to medium-term are ZERO. Trump is all in on this gamble, and he will allow environmental destruction and the extortion of domestic energy consumers to foot the bill for the rapid expansion of the energy infrastructure needed to power the data centres required. NOTHING will be allowed to get in the way. Greed is overriding common sense and joined-up thinking. The US intends to fuel this expansion with fossil-fuel-driven energy because American politics is driven by political donors, special interests, and a shareholder class seeking a quick buck.
It’s a very short-sighted strategy, because cheap energy is the key to winning this war, and on that front, China is winning hands down. The US's abandonment of green energy will just add to the delay in progress. Trump’s isolationism and retreat to an untrained pool of yesteryear labour leaves him unable to meet the demands of tech-driven economic growth. It’s as stupid as him spending $179 billion on mass deportation, while setting fire to annual state and federal tax revenues of $90 billion from 14% of the US workforce. It’s why the economy is coming apart at the seams, as the administration delivers a litany of catastrophic unforced errors.
There’s a need to understand that the American people are underwriting this high-risk gamble, because if it all collapses, as I suspect it might, taxpayers will be left with the tab as Trump and his acolytes flee to some country with no extradition treaty.
When it comes to AI as a vehicle to drive economic prosperity, there is just one consideration for the tech oligarchs: PROFIT, not service to society; that’s just considered ‘value added’. For all those screaming, ‘Just pull the plug, ’ go back to sleep. Long before ChatGPT, AI became an integral part of our everyday lives. It just had no public visibility for most until ChatGPT came along. From banking to the free narcotics provided by the same dopamine-dealing tech giants, we have all become addicts. Algorithmic trading accounts for between 60% and 70% of total stock trading volume, particularly in major markets like the U.S., and this is not new. Beyond this, there are many daily encounters we have, unaware that AI is driving those interactions.
When you look at recent violent dips and gains in the stock markets, they have been driven almost entirely by AI bots programmed to de-risk trading positions. As soon as one bot breaks rank, they all follow, and you see massive drops. Evidence shows that the market then relies on human trading to spark any recovery. AI is the horse that has long since bolted the stable; it’s now running out in the wild, unregulated.
The complex interactions of the market are a fragile partnership between man and technology. It’s the beating heart of corporate exploitation, and the genie that can’t be put back in the bottle. While we’re kept busy with shit posting from those in power, and waste our time in return rage-tweeting, the whole fabric of society is being rewired to fit a new world, not by people more intelligent than us, but by obscenely wealthy people who can afford to buy the services of the brightest talent on the planet to reshape the world in their image.
We were taken hostage by AI a long time ago; it’s what powered Trump’s election win in 2016. Ever since then, it has been used to weaponise division, discrimination and hate, so it is pretty amusing to read social media posts claiming that all we need to do is pull the plug. A world without AI would be like withdrawal for a crack addict. Tragically, modern-day society has been built on a fantasy foundation constructed to keep us engaged in an endless search for needs we never knew we had until social media insisted we did. From telling you what to buy to telling you how to vote, this is the new world we have helped them create for free. It’s like the script of an end-of-days movie.
It’s time for people to live in the REAL WORLD, because the threat we face is VERY real. Unlike many new Chinese AI models, US models operate in a closed, proprietary environment sealed by legal protections that limit access to only what the model's owners want you to see. There’s no question that intellectual property has to be protected, but from a public interest point of view, there is no reciprocal arrangement; you get what you are given, and without regulation, you can just as easily become a victim of the technology as a beneficiary.
I made a short film that I have shared before, but I believe it's worth sharing again if you haven’t seen it. In part three, I want to explore the political implications of AI and the essential ingredient of the ‘Digital ID’
I realise that this is as the Beatles wrote ‘A long and winding road’, we are walking together, but I hope I am opening your eyes not only to the scale of the problem, but its complexity. If you are not yet a paid subscriber to Truth Matters, I hope you can see the importance of supporting this type of work, because it’s hard to find in corporate media outlets.
Read PART THREE
In part three, we’re going to look deeper into the implications of the control AI can exert, not only to frame the narrative but to control society itself through digital identities. Don’t despair too much; there still remains hope if we can just escape the tyranny of this administration. I have a busy day tomorrow so the next part may not drop until Sunday, but I will try my best to get it out tomorrow.
