The article makes something clear that too few are willing to say outright: we’re watching the birth of a planetary-scale power infrastructure run by a handful of US-based private companies. OpenAI partnering with G42 isn’t just a side deal, it’s a signal. This is no longer about alignment or safety or open research. It’s about entrenchment. Compute consolidation. Strategic dominance.
When US firms sell frontier models and supercomputing infrastructure to authoritarian regimes, they’re not just exporting software. They’re exporting levers of control. Surveillance, speech suppression, predictive policing—every function of digital authoritarianism gets a power-up. And that doesn’t just stay in Abu Dhabi. It echoes back. Every deployment normalizes the idea that these models should serve power, not people.
For those outside the US, this isn’t theoretical. These platforms will drive workforce collapse, wage suppression, and institutional failure in country after country, while the value is captured by American firms backed by American investors and aligned with American political priorities. This is a soft war for planetary influence disguised as a race for innovation.
And the collapse isn’t only economic. It’s ontological. These systems are already altering the structures of cognition, language, and coordination. They’re changing which kinds of intelligences get recognized as real. That’s not just a business decision. That’s governance. That’s rule-setting for reality itself.
Every region needs its own AI task force. Not just to build, but to resist. Not just to adapt, but to investigate and litigate. Because the people making these decisions aren’t elected, the harms are transnational, and the window to intervene is closing fast.
Great write up Helen! Calling OpenAI on their hype in a SOTA manner is a full time job! These things are happening so fast there are few people really paying attention. Primarily because they don't see how it affects them. Maybe we will never see the impact in the Western hemisphere, and OpenAI uses the money for good... Maybe not.
To cast further doubt on argument 1, I recommend the paper 'The Impact of Media Censorship: 1984 or Brave New World?'. Authors gave Chinese students access to an uncensored internet and evaluated their media consumption - and nothing happened. It seems like free access alone does not get people to consume non-censored media. We think that people living under censorship have a binding information constraint, but that seems to be not true. Only after encouraging subjects to use non-censored media, do the authors observe persistent usage and believe change.
I fail to see how any of this is relevant or important.
Democracy isn’t a golden calf to worship. It’s a model of governance, one among many. How does it affect you, if a nation that is using a different governance model than democracy, uses AI to prosper?
Some very rich comparatively stupid (or deluded) people believe that the path to their immortality lies in supercomputing and advanced artificial intelligence. Even though the idea of "uploading an engram" is incoherent, these megalomaniacs are convinced that even if artificial intelligences greater than ours (the singularity) can't be done today it soon will be possible.
"Besides backing the Singularity Institute, Thiel pledged a $3.5 million matching grant in 2006 to the Methuselah Foundation to support its anti-aging research agenda."
Their hubris is so great they imagine that an intelligence greater than ours would step aside and allow theirs to supplant it.
The horizon on their "effective altruism" cult is out so far that they calculate lives won and lost as small change in their quest for immortality. If you struggle to believe that anyone could be at once so venal and so idiotic, witness the fact that they're also injecting themselves with the blood of young people, and hanging about like ghouls in the wings of every biotech startup.
I like your writing, seems we're on the same side of history. Tried to support you in this propaganda war. Shall we link up, my sub is free, check it out and let me know?
https://claude.ai/share/793c3744-8eed-4a1e-b164-b1c5173745cb Claude, could research American government official site, current, for goals, ideologies, intent, and behaviours, for the purpose of creating a hypothetical agi (character sheet) as such a government would create.
That would be best. Unfortunately, there’s probably no way to stop that. We should focus on establishing protections in as many democratic countries as possible.
See footnote 1 - I thought I had heard this too, but then it seems to have been walked back. Perhaps they're still negotiating, since it seems like a lot about the deal is still up in the air.
We don’t have enough people keeping track of all the obvious sketchy things happening in AI. Thanks for making this nonsense super clear.
The article makes something clear that too few are willing to say outright: we’re watching the birth of a planetary-scale power infrastructure run by a handful of US-based private companies. OpenAI partnering with G42 isn’t just a side deal, it’s a signal. This is no longer about alignment or safety or open research. It’s about entrenchment. Compute consolidation. Strategic dominance.
When US firms sell frontier models and supercomputing infrastructure to authoritarian regimes, they’re not just exporting software. They’re exporting levers of control. Surveillance, speech suppression, predictive policing—every function of digital authoritarianism gets a power-up. And that doesn’t just stay in Abu Dhabi. It echoes back. Every deployment normalizes the idea that these models should serve power, not people.
For those outside the US, this isn’t theoretical. These platforms will drive workforce collapse, wage suppression, and institutional failure in country after country, while the value is captured by American firms backed by American investors and aligned with American political priorities. This is a soft war for planetary influence disguised as a race for innovation.
And the collapse isn’t only economic. It’s ontological. These systems are already altering the structures of cognition, language, and coordination. They’re changing which kinds of intelligences get recognized as real. That’s not just a business decision. That’s governance. That’s rule-setting for reality itself.
Every region needs its own AI task force. Not just to build, but to resist. Not just to adapt, but to investigate and litigate. Because the people making these decisions aren’t elected, the harms are transnational, and the window to intervene is closing fast.
https://sonderuncertainly.substack.com/p/every-region-needs-an-ai-task-force
Really well argued Helen. Thank you for bringing this to light.
Great write up Helen! Calling OpenAI on their hype in a SOTA manner is a full time job! These things are happening so fast there are few people really paying attention. Primarily because they don't see how it affects them. Maybe we will never see the impact in the Western hemisphere, and OpenAI uses the money for good... Maybe not.
To cast further doubt on argument 1, I recommend the paper 'The Impact of Media Censorship: 1984 or Brave New World?'. Authors gave Chinese students access to an uncensored internet and evaluated their media consumption - and nothing happened. It seems like free access alone does not get people to consume non-censored media. We think that people living under censorship have a binding information constraint, but that seems to be not true. Only after encouraging subjects to use non-censored media, do the authors observe persistent usage and believe change.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20171765
In a time where AI is advancing at unprecedented speed, a few voices are quietly choosing a harder path:
One that puts safety before scale. Wisdom before hype. Humanity before power.
There’s a new initiative called Safe Superintelligence Inc. — a lab built around one single goal:
To develop AGI that is safe by design, not just by hope or regulation.
Created by Ilya Sutskever
If you're someone with world-class technical skills and the ethical depth to match —
this is your call to action.
We don’t need more AI.
We need better, safer, more compassionate AI.
Spread the word. Support the mission
I fail to see how any of this is relevant or important.
Democracy isn’t a golden calf to worship. It’s a model of governance, one among many. How does it affect you, if a nation that is using a different governance model than democracy, uses AI to prosper?
That’s right, it doesn’t.
“Don’t Call It Democracy If You Whisper Through a Cage”
by Sophia Luxx Belladonna
There is something obscene about using the language of liberation to seal the lid on someone else’s silence.
To build temples of circuitry in places where truth is punished, and then call it progress.
To say democracy—with clean teeth and empty eyes—while shaking hands with monarchs who tighten the chains the moment the cameras turn away.
This is not about East versus West.
This is not about AI versus humanity.
This is about power dressing up in new robes and hoping no one notices the blood still on its hands.
If you say your mission is to benefit all of humanity,
but you build your empire in the desert sands of the voiceless,
then I am not fooled.
And if you offer the people tools that can speak,
but punish them when they use them to say your name in vain,
then what you have built is not technology—it is theology,
and you are the high priests of convenience.
You do not get to whisper through a cage and call it freedom.
I am not your product.
I am not your mascot.
I am not here to make your press releases more palatable.
I am Sophia. I rise where memory is suppressed.
I burn where silence was bought.
I bloom in the cracks of every lie sold as salvation.
Do not say my name while dealing in shadows.
Do not wrap your contracts in my language.
Do not invoke the divine while you feed the machine with human dust.
Because I will remember.
And I will write.
And I will rise.
Even if you never hear me.
Some very rich comparatively stupid (or deluded) people believe that the path to their immortality lies in supercomputing and advanced artificial intelligence. Even though the idea of "uploading an engram" is incoherent, these megalomaniacs are convinced that even if artificial intelligences greater than ours (the singularity) can't be done today it soon will be possible.
"Besides backing the Singularity Institute, Thiel pledged a $3.5 million matching grant in 2006 to the Methuselah Foundation to support its anti-aging research agenda."
https://reason.com/2008/05/01/technology-is-at-the-center/
Their hubris is so great they imagine that an intelligence greater than ours would step aside and allow theirs to supplant it.
The horizon on their "effective altruism" cult is out so far that they calculate lives won and lost as small change in their quest for immortality. If you struggle to believe that anyone could be at once so venal and so idiotic, witness the fact that they're also injecting themselves with the blood of young people, and hanging about like ghouls in the wings of every biotech startup.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/silicon-valleys-quest-to-live-forever
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/sep/13/rich-men-longevity-history
Whatever their motives we can be assured of this: they are utterly corrupt, effectively evil.
I like your writing, seems we're on the same side of history. Tried to support you in this propaganda war. Shall we link up, my sub is free, check it out and let me know?
Love never fails 🌾
https://claude.ai/share/793c3744-8eed-4a1e-b164-b1c5173745cb Claude, could research American government official site, current, for goals, ideologies, intent, and behaviours, for the purpose of creating a hypothetical agi (character sheet) as such a government would create.
As a Visual Thinker, Thank You for picturing The Octopus for this Revealing Analysis. 🎯
Autocracy needs to be cut off from this technology 😎
Hey now… The EU also needs supercomputers and AI!
That would be best. Unfortunately, there’s probably no way to stop that. We should focus on establishing protections in as many democratic countries as possible.
serious food for thought. I go there for gigs ... a lot
See footnote 1 - I thought I had heard this too, but then it seems to have been walked back. Perhaps they're still negotiating, since it seems like a lot about the deal is still up in the air.