Let's talk about AI (Part 6)

When the hype meets the real world.

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5

This is the final part of my series of posts to help create a better understanding of the complex economic and geopolitical implications and challenges arising from AI.

If it’s one thing Trump is very accomplished at, it’s distorting reality. As I’ve discussed on many occasions, he spends most of his time creating an alternative reality through social media messaging. A fantasy that has no connection to the lived experience of his audience, yet they still buy what he is selling. History will remember him as the embodiment of The Emperor’s New Clothes. For those unfamiliar, it’s a literary folktale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Trump has mastered the art of deception by exploiting the inherent human trait of cognitive laziness, our tendency to conserve mental energy by using shortcuts (heuristics) for quick decisions, rather than engaging in critical thinking.

One thing the US has always been good at is using its economic muscle and military power to perpetuate a certain degree of protectionism. It’s why, for example, they have blocked Chinese EVs and European Scania trucks from the US market, as well as restricting China’s access to top-end AI Chips. Such protectionism is ultimately self-defeating, as we can see with attempts to suffocate Chinese technology innovation. Ultimately, restrictions have forced China to develop its own chips and technology solutions, some of which already threaten US dominance.

This approach represents the antithesis of its free-market model, in which competition and innovation allegedly drive the delivery of the best, most cost-effective products for consumers and businesses. If only the evidence supported this fallacy in a now-monopoly-controlled economy.

Trump has decided to reimagine the tax system to distort the economic picture completely. Tariffs are unquestionably a sales tax; he can clearly see from his alleged ‘affordability hoax’ that affordability IS hurting him politically, it’s why he recently had to remove tariffs on certain items like coffee. He then tried to push the false narrative that Thanksgiving dinner was cheaper in collusion with the Walmart CEO. The key point is to recognise that business leaders are aiding and abetting him in deceiving the American people.

Trump’s whole economic agenda is built on lies and deception. His presidency is based on the assumption that if he tells you often enough that you have never been better off, despite your lived experience, you will eventually believe it. Given past success with this strategy, he thinks it’s a tried-and-tested solution worth continuing. Unfortunately, public opinion polls suggest that this ship has now sailed. His answer is not to stop telling lies, but to silence those who are calling them out, which is why he’s expanding his attack on corporate media to include his new White House ‘Media Offenders List’. A taxpayer-funded attack on ANY voice of dissent. It’s all about applying pressure on those telling the truth in order to perpetuate his false narrative.

This brings us nicely back to the Executive Order Trump says he will now issue to prevent states from regulating AI. He stated on Truth Social:

“There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” Trump said. “We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS…AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY!”

This is classic Trump. Congress refused to sanction this legislation the last time Trump tried to take federal control of AI regulation (or, more importantly, lack of it). It’s just another example of the gross hypocrisy that marks almost every move he makes. It’s fine to defer to the states on matters that he feels provide political advantage. However, when it comes to him earning billions, he wants control to rest in the Oval Office, so an Executive Order is a perfect solution.

As Rebecca Bellan from TechCrunch wrote:

“Christmas comes early for AI billionaires who keep getting exactly what they want from The White House: a massive handout that makes it that much easier for them to make massive profits for themselves with exactly zero consideration for the risks to our kids, to our safety, and to our jobs,” New York Assembly member Alex Bores, who sponsored New York’s RAISE Act, said in a statement.

The whole AI project is part of a new tech-industrial corruption operation headquartered at the White House, where the level of corrupt collusion is off the charts. Trump is set to allow these AI tech giants to do whatever it takes to win the race, even though they have only a 50/50 chance of emerging victorious. The implications for the environment and society at large are potentially catastrophic. But, much more than that, Trump is placing these greed machines in pole position for a taxpayer bailout should their actions demand. He’s making them too big to fail regardless of their reckless behaviour, and we know what that led to in 2008.

Let’s look at the basic facts. As reported by fortune.com,

“Companies are betting on AI—yet nearly all enterprise pilots are stuck at the starting line.”

The reason 95% of businesses investing in AI see little to no return is due to poor execution and a knowledge deficit. We’ll discuss the technology itself and its capability deficits later. However, in the short term, it’s more about poor implementation. Claims that the technology doesn’t work or doesn’t deliver a return on investment are overstated. We are and will continue to see a small number of specialist AI implementation consultancies making big money by providing services to implement AI. However, their short-sighted primary objective is to reduce workforce costs rather than to pursue efficient implementation. If you want to understand the impact on US jobs better, I recommend you read this piece from the MIT Management, Sloan School by Seb Murray from October 9th 2025, entitled:

How artificial intelligence impacts the US labour market

Image - Wall Street Journal

AI is being sold as a productivity and efficiency tool, just as factory automation has been over the past decades. Just as there was aggressive resistance to factory automation, so there is to AI. With technology comes inevitable change and a requirement to adapt; humans are notoriously resistant to change. However, this time around it’s very different. The cost of implementing manufacturing automation was prohibitive for many companies. Many subsequently fell by the wayside, leaving those who carved a niche in the ‘handmade’ specialist market for high-priced alternatives to mass-produced products to profit. This time, it’s very different: someone working from home with a laptop can produce a service that could earn millions globally with low development costs.

There has never been a bigger opportunity to democratise wealth creation. AI has created an environment where human ingenuity can generate opportunities for millions of next-generation entrepreneurs to earn good money. Predictably, however, the sole focus is on a few powerful corporations with the money to buy the same political class that in the 1970s threw American workers under the bus to buy cheap labour in China. There is no thought of sharing opportunities, simply a focus on workforce reduction to turbocharge profit. Frankly, it’s typically shortsighted and stupid. If AI truly escapes its corporate captors, it could significantly reduce the wealth gap, provide a living wage for every American family, and spark the most significant growth period in American history.

It’s time to stop thinking of this technology in old-world terms and embrace its ability to realign economies toward a more prosperous and equitable society. This is not a pipe dream; it’s about political choices. Trump’s current strategy is to make the obscenely rich even more obscenely wealthy. At the same time, the bottom 90% is painted as lazy, while the vulnerable are considered a drag on economic progress. That’s the age-old model of unbridled free market capitalism controlled by the top 1%. It doesn’t have to be this way.

You can’t simply drop this type of transformative technology on society without long-term strategic planning, but that costs money the rich aren’t prepared to spend, because ultimately it will prevent them from getting richer faster. As ever, GREED takes priority. It’s equally frustrating to hear people saying. ‘Don’t tell us about the problems, we know what they are. Tell us about how we fix them?’ To this, I say respectfully, it wasn’t me that voted to commit societal suicide last November, it was 70 million Americans, and if the response is ‘we’re cooked’ or ‘what will be will be’, then I suggest you deserve no better than what Trump is delivering for you.

The problem for me is that the idiots who voted for this shit show, should not be allowed to enforce the results of their stupidity on the millions who didn’t, or the millions who now regret having done so. I’ve said over and over, THERE IS NO QUICK FIX, and any fix can only begin while this administration is ejected from power. So rather than talk about ‘tell us how to fix it’, start by electing those prepared to put people before politics because that’s ground zero, I’m afraid.

If you want to address the problem, you have to recognise that it begins with education, and you don’t achieve that by closing the Department of Education and turning out adults with literacy levels at or below sixth grade. America is reaping what it has sown. The objective must be to bolster the education system and retool it to make AI implementation and deployment a new vocational arm of education. I can tell you without fear of contradiction that this is EXACTLY what the Chinese government is doing right now. Every child who comes out of the Chinese education system is highly computer literate and speaks English better than Donald Trump. The new generation will leave education not just tech-literate but also AI-literate.

Before anyone pipes up about the Chinese elite, ask yourself this. If the vast majority of Americans earned a living wage, had access to affordable housing, healthcare, and child care, do you think they would give the top 1% a second thought? They wouldn’t, and that’s why China will ultimately win what is becoming an increasingly unwinnable war for America. The US is in this fight, dragging the ball and chain of greed and the shareholder class. Has China got its own problems? Absolutely, it does. Bizarrely, it too has an unaffordability crisis, but it’s NOT about prices being high, it’s about prices being too low because of ultra-intense competition for domestic market share. It’s called ‘neijuan’, which translates to ‘involution’.

Definition:

A social and economic phenomenon of intense, often fruitless competition where increased effort leads to diminishing returns, leaving participants exhausted without real progress, seen in extreme study/work habits and vicious industry price wars (like EVs, solar) that create overcapacity and deflation, sparking youth burnout and “lying flat”

If you would like to read more about the challenges faced by China at this moment as a result of overcapacity created by an over-efficient manufacturing economy, I would recommend this report by the Guardian’s Senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins, from December 24th 2024. This is BEFORE Trump’s second term began. Amy notes:

In December, top [Chinese] economic policymakers gathered for the annual Central Economic Work Conference, which sets the national economic agenda. According to the readout of the closed-door meeting, the cadres pledged to “rectify ‘involutionary’ competition”.

As long as Trump is disrupting global trade, this problem will persist. The burning question is whether China is hurting more than the US, and on that, the jury is out. China, despite the US's efforts to break it, has just surpassed a $1 trillion trade surplus for the first time. China was ready for Trump from the day he took office; they had already game-played his lunacy, and that’s why his tariff war, while hurting China, has not achieved its objectives of breaking them.

AI is here to stay; this is not about whether it’s adopted, but when and how. The Chinese and US governments have very different visions for how best to leverage AI’s enormous power. For Trump, it’s about one thing. PROFIT. For the Chinese, it’s about geopolitical advancement to take advantage of the opportunities America has chosen to abandon.

As for AI’s ability, I’ll leave you to watch the video below, which, for me, says it all. There’s a long way to go, but the US is prepared to throw the American workforce under the bus early on in pursuit of a fantasy sold by the tech oligarchs. There is absolutely NO COMPARISON between AI and the human brain, and if you fall for this nonsense being sold to you by wealthy men, you do a disservice to your brain—my deepest thanks to Parth Patel, parthknowsai, for the clip. If you would like to read the full report, I have linked it. If you want to keep in the loop on AI, follow him on YouTube

I have provided much food for thought in this series. However, I’m pretty confident it accurately represents where we are, the potential dangers, and the considerations for discussion required to mitigate its impact on society.

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