I woke up at 4.30 am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I did what I always do: made a cup of tea and sat down to read. I went to sleep with my mind racing after writing part 2 of this series of posts yesterday. The reason I was prompted to write about AI was the engagement I received after sharing a video of Bernie Sanders discussing the need to regulate it. Interestingly, the first two parts of this series have sparked little further engagement on this important issue.
Please don’t misunderstand: while, of course, it’s encouraging to have folk engage, people who read my work know I simply examine the facts, then objectively assess the points of intersection in the political narrative. My primary aim has always been to create a historical journal. It’s all about documenting the key societal and geopolitical impacts of what’s happening in a world under siege from malign right-wing influence, with a focus on the rapidly deteriorating political situation in the US. I was trying to think why discussing AI wouldn't attract more interest, and I have to admit I'm still scratching my head, given that AI is a revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since the industrial revolution.
Maybe that’s why I was awake early? So I decided to take a step back and consider whether the information needed to be packaged better, which led me to wonder whether I should be leading with ‘We have breaking news’? Did you hear that? That’s the sound of me putting down my freshly sharpened sarcasm pencil. It’s actually quite an amusing thought to think that the solution might be to dumb down talking about a technology purported to be much brighter than all of us.
If there were one series of posts I would trade for all the posts to date in terms of the need to reach people, this series would be the one. Because the requirement for an open and honest discussion on AI, goes way beyond the threat of the global instability we face in this moment. It represents a threat to our very existence, and that’s not hyperbole.
The reason this subject is fascinating on so many levels is that it’s born of the arrogance of our species and our inability to suppress the instinct for greed, power and wealth. It’s on the same level as our instincts for procreation. It’s almost like cock measuring is in our DNA. We have a small group of MEN, and they are all men, who have more money than they could ever spend in a hundred lifetimes, and yet they want more. Even worse, they want it so bad that they’re prepared to play Russian roulette with humanity itself, on the assumption that their wealth will protect them from the potential extinction event that may result from the risks they are taking with our money and our lives.
Do me a favour and save a link to this piece because I’m pretty sure that you will be able to look back on it in the future and say, ‘someone told me this would happen.’ Sometimes I think the complexity of the situation we find ourselves in has become too much for people to make sense of, and I get it. It’s easy to say, ‘What will be will be, ’ and get on with your life. Imagine what would have happened if we had thought the same in 1939, when Hitler decided the world needed an empire ruled by the pseudo-scientific theory of an “Aryan race,”. With each passing day, it’s not beyond the imagination of many that Trump is committed to reimagining the Third Reich for the 21st Century. I was going to say without the gas chambers, but with Trump, you never know.
Tomorrow marks the 84th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbour. An attack on the US, which at the time had abandoned its European allies after World War I and adopted a strategic isolationist foreign policy. One would have thought that lessons were learned from that historic and deadly event. However, it seems Trump now plans to do the same, as noted in his new US National Security Strategy published this week.
As reported in a piece by the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, on December 5th 2025, he opened with :
Donald Trump’s administration has said Europe faces “civilisational erasure” within the next two decades as a result of migration and EU integration, arguing in a policy document that the US must “cultivate resistance” within the continent to “Europe’s current trajectory”.
Billed as “a roadmap to ensure America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history and the home of freedom on earth”, the US National Security Strategy makes explicit Washington’s support for Europe’s nationalist far-right parties.
So what does this have to do with AI, I hear you say? To which I say: it has EVERYTHING to do with AI, because the whole US roadmap is built on AI domination. The US is now telling Europe that it will now ‘cultivate resistance’ against those who have been staunch allies of the American people. A coalition of countries that have sent their sons and daughters to fight alongside American soldiers on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. I find it impossible to articulate how I feel about a country I have fallen in love with over the years, which, it now appears, is looking towards a strategic alliance with Russia, in an attempt to destroy a way of life that, for all its imperfections, I love with all my heart.
I feel betrayed and deeply wounded that such a longstanding ally is teaming up with an indicted war criminal to help incubate a far-right takeover of Europe. But much more than that, I feel even more sympathy for the vast majority of the American people who are passengers in what appears to be an attempted bloodless coup to hand Europe to the far right. Make no mistake, that’s what this National Security Strategy policy document amounts to.
I watched with a sense of incredulity as my day went from the sublime to the ridiculous yesterday. In a moment of utter cringe, FIFA president Gianni Infantino presented a made-up ‘Peace Prize’ medal, which he handed to Trump in recognition of his many fantasy peace deals. International feudalism at its best, bringing gifts to the king. It’s the type of behaviour that used to occur during Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq; those who didn’t pay homage were fed to his son’s pet lions and tigers.
Anyway, I digress. The reason I have used politics to set the stage for this, the third part of this series, is because of Trump’s strategic alliance with the tech oligarchs. It would be true to say that he has no understanding of what AI is; he merely sees an opportunity to enrich himself at taxpayers’ expense. Only an idiot would assume that a made-in-heaven collaboration between the AI companies and the fossil fuel industry will not soak up billions in government subsidies in the same way Musk has soaked taxpayers for years.
As said at the outset, AI is here, and it has the potential to deliver transformative benefits for good. The question is, at what cost? And I’m not talking about money. The biggest problem with AI is not its potential, but rather the fantasy that the likes of Sam Altman are attempting to sell the world to attract investment. Altman works on the age-old, flawed premise that no problem exists that money can’t solve. Consider the trillions of dollars that have been spent on war, yet here we are in 2025, when the most valuable weapon on the battlefield is a $500 drone. When it comes to spending other people’s money, all you need is an epidemic of stupidity, and there’s no better example of that stupidity than the current US stock market.
AI is becoming like fast fashion, where attention spans are shrinking by the day, simply because you can’t stifle the human ability to innovate. When I worked in the music industry for two decades, major labels dictated which artists made it. I know of several occasions when new artists were signed to a label and parked to prevent other labels from signing them and competing with their own artists. I remember the days when a competent 1/4 inch tape editor could earn excellent wages, and audio samplers cost thousands of dollars to capture a few seconds of digital audio. I can now do on my laptop what I needed a 24-track studio to do in the late eighties.
The thing about technology is that it has the ability to democratise everything it touches. Artists can now have millions of downloads from a song created in a bedroom in a few hours. There was no escape, though, from corporate influence as streaming services emerged to control music distribution. Corporations were never going to give up their cut of profits. It’s an endless cycle of corporate interests adapting to exploit artists; the same is now true of movie streaming services. The new proposed Warner Bros. acquisition by Netflix is just another move to extort the creative industries. It’s all about control. Limit access points, as with media news outlets and exert control.
AI is no different; what the tech giants are doing is creating an ‘understanding’ among themselves, because the Monopolies Commission can’t break up an understanding. That’s why you are seeing this circus of circular investment keeping their stock prices elevated. They are quite literally inhabiting a 21st-century Wild West of their own making. I don’t believe anyone understands just how they are manoeuvring themselves into the position of holding the American economy hostage in their quest for riches.
In the next episode, I’ll break down the myth that claims of Artificial General Intelligence can be achieved by throwing more and more compute at the problem. The truth is that these technologies are really in the foothills of development, but investors are being told, ‘We’re almost there, ’ to perpetuate the investment fantasy. The sales pitch is far better than the product, and tomorrow we’ll explore what you are getting at the moment in return for destroying the environment and contaminating the water, all in service of selling corporate America the dream of throwing their workforce under the bus to deliver previously unseen profit margins.
Read PART 4
Perhaps the lack of engagement comes from feeling completely overwhelmed and stunned by the enormity of the problem.
I am following these articles with great attention and feel that this on is the right amount of words! Although I read every word of your longer articles, I find that I have to break them down into a smaller bites. Thanks for educating me.