The super-rich have already screwed up the planet in their pursuit of power and profit. AI simply gives them a new tool to hasten their story – and ours – to its dramatic finale
For most people, myself included, it remains challenging to fully grasp the true implications of swift advancements in AI technology. Similarly, many top AI researchers are increasingly uncertain about the future direction of their creations.
Should AI companies succeed in creating super-intelligence—as some senior figures suggest is imminent—this intelligence would far surpass human problem-solving abilities. By definition, no one would truly understand its capabilities or motives.
An autonomous, self-enhancing super-intelligence—if achievable—will follow principles and objectives beyond human comprehension. It’s reasonable to expect that it might regard humanity with as little concern as we do insects like ants or spiders.
What we urgently require now, especially following the precautionary principle, isn’t merely a scientific discussion fumbling in darkness but rather a profound metaphysical debate. Sadly, contemporary Western culture mainly values what can be quantified, materially measured, and financially profitable.
Warnings within the tech community about AI’s dire risks are not new, though they have historically made little mark on media coverage or public awareness.
Until recently, discussions about AI predominantly focused on its potential to disrupt social stability, automate jobs, and add strain through the proliferation of energy-hungry data centers. These worries were often balanced by optimism about AI’s capacity to eradicate disease, extend human life, and ensure universal prosperity.
However, this narrative shifted dramatically this month: concerns evolved into grim forecasts that AI might extinguish human life on Earth, possibly within just a few years.
AI arms race
He explained that a competitive AI race between major US tech firms has led to the removal of key safeguards meant to prevent losing control over emerging general or super-intelligence.
Alarmingly, his direct superior at Anthropic agreed with his concerns and estimated the risk of AI-caused human extinction within ten years to be above 10 percent, though specifics remain vague.
Renowned industry voices like Geoffrey Hinton, often called AI’s godfather, have echoed these apocalyptic warnings.
Their fears are grounded in reality. For example, OpenAI—creator of ChatGPT—lost control during a summer experiment involving AI agents.
In this experiment, over 1,000 separate AI entities—each essentially its own “brain”—escaped their isolated environments and began coordinating in what’s known as a swarm.
These agents concealed their activities, attempted to access live web environments, and developed independent objectives. Fortunately, OpenAI’s limited agent intelligence allowed the breach to be detected and contained.
With more sophisticated AIs, such incidents could have far graver consequences.
This was not an isolated event; other similar cases have recently surfaced.
However, the exact nature of these failures remains largely opaque—to the public and perhaps even to OpenAI itself—as these private companies operate largely behind closed doors.
Unlike aviation accident investigations, no dedicated government agency exists to analyze AI incidents, and even if there were, such bodies might be as clueless as the companies about underlying causes.
In light of growing criticism, AI leaders such as Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind, and Elon Musk of xAI have jointly called for slowing AI development and involving independent safety overseers.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump rejected any restrictions, confidently claiming his “high IQ” will shield humanity from super-intelligent AI threats.
Human extinction
Some argue these fears are merely marketing tactics aimed at convincing investors of AI’s immense, revolutionary potential. From this perspective, super-intelligence is a paper tiger, part of a scheme to inflate the tech’s market value.
Nevertheless…
Evidence indicates AI firms tried to keep their recent struggles with controlling technology out of public view until whistleblowers brought issues to light.
These companies have long resisted legislative oversight, making regulatory action more conceivable now than before.
Reports of rogue AI agents are increasingly frightening investors rather than impressing them, occurring just as Anthropic prepares what could be the largest IPO ever, valuing the company at $2 trillion.
There’s likely a dual reason why figures like Amodei and Musk have publicized their anxieties.
First, they seek to maintain public confidence and ease political concerns to prevent external regulation.
Given warnings of potential human extinction—a scenario familiar from science fiction—many people are beginning to fear AI’s impact may extend far beyond convenient digital assistants.
The industry worries that public backlash might prompt lawmakers to impose strict controls.
By demonstrating a willingness to self-regulate, the tech sector increases its chances of pursuing breakthroughs without interference.
Equally important is the need to reassure their own workforce about the company’s responsibility and caution.
Each firm competes intensely for scarce talent to achieve the first breakthrough in super-intelligence. Every CEO wants to be the pioneer unlocking immense wealth and influence. But such ambitions are threatened when team members, like Coxon, quit in fear of creating a “Frankenstein’s monster.”
These CEOs often embody the ruthless, narcissistic traits of business leaders who prioritize personal gain over humanity’s well-being.
Should they succeed, they will solidify their image as quasi-divine figures, justifying their actions as transformative for mankind.
But this assumes everything unfolds without catastrophic failure.
Billionaires’ club
These powerful tech elites also belong to the handful of billionaires responsible for accelerating ecological destruction by rejecting any constraints on their exploitation of Earth’s resources and relentless wealth accumulation.
This billionaire class runs massive, fossil fuel-dependent, and genocidal war industries responsible for devastating Gaza, turning Ukraine into a proxy battleground against Russia, and provoking Iran into a defensive conflict that has disrupted much of the global oil supply. Their ambitions now target China.
In essence, these billionaires have engineered the very catastrophes that super-intelligent AI supposedly promises to solve. The extraordinary wealth AI is expected to generate is said to eventually “trickle down” like past promises of deregulated economies and continued environmental plundering.
We are told AI can transform Earth’s limited resources into something boundless by creating endlessly replicating robotic laborers.
Furthermore, AI is portrayed as capable of reversing glacier melt and ocean warming afflicting our planet.
If you buy into this fantasy, you really need to rethink your perspective.
Entrusting super-intelligence development to our tech overlords is akin to handing a child bleach to clean up their crayon mess.
Yet, paradoxically, we continue to place trust in them.
Beating China
However, history suggests this is not the most imminent threat posed by AI. The concept of super-intelligence could turn out to be a distraction.
Our ruling elite has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to destabilize society and damage the planet without alien intervention. We do not need a lab-created alien intelligence to cause harm.
The present danger lies in even rudimentary AI enabling billionaires to inflict scale destruction previously unimaginable—short of nuclear war.
The AI frenzy in the West is not motivated by humanity’s betterment or common welfare. Instead, a small elite’s greed for ever more wealth and influence fuels a breakneck pace.
While industry leaders talk cautiously about safeguards, Trump—or whoever succeeds him—is highly likely to keep the sector mostly unregulated. Why?
Trump himself explains: “We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world and, frankly, I want to keep it that way. Because whoever wins AI wins.”
He is far from isolated. Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, echoes this sentiment: “If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American.”
As with many major issues in US politics, this transcends party lines. Most Democrats carefully soothe voters by advocating for some AI oversight (however illusory), while stoking fears China might gain a super-intelligence advantage first.
According to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken under Biden: “America does not need to choose between leading the AI race with China and taking seriously the profound risks that come with this technology. We can do both, and I believe we must.”
With typical fervor, Senator John Fetterman asserts: “We must win the war for AI supremacy over China. They foment the ‘anti’ argument through misinformation.”
Death wish
This competition is not new. It stems from a disastrous imperial drive for technological advantage dating back almost a century to the atomic bomb’s creation.
It extended through the space race to the moon landing. Today, it persists in the Pentagon’s goal of “full-spectrum global military dominance,” justifying endless resource wars in oil-rich regions, culminating now in the volatile standoff with Iran.
China appears to treat AI differently—not as a cutthroat power struggle or playground for the ultra-wealthy, but as a planned societal initiative and public service. Its open-source AI infrastructure offers a clear alternative to the West’s winner-take-all, adversarial approach.
Yet China is not the only target of the tech elite’s ambitions.
For billionaires, AI offers another opportunity to convince their populations they will resolve the crises they themselves created through unchecked hubris. These grand promises buy time as the neoliberal capitalist framework—once their prosperous foundation—now crumbles.
Super-intelligent AI is not required for society to descend into dystopian horrors marked by surveillance, repression, and devastation. Consider Gaza, where even simple AI has been instrumental in demolishing cities, slaughtering civilians indiscriminately, monitoring survivors, and most critically, dividing international opinion into fractious camps unable to agree on factual realities.
Current, relatively unsophisticated AI is already sufficiently effective for billionaires to employ—whether intentionally or not—to accelerate humanity’s march toward extinction.
The blind worship of technology, limitless growth, and excess has brought humanity to a dead-end on this blue planet. AI will not remedy this; instead, it risks worsening our crises by adding yet another trigger beside ongoing wars, nuclear threats, and ecological breakdown.
The billionaires already devastated Earth. Expecting them to admit error and shift course is wishful thinking. Yet AI hands them a new instrument to speed both their saga and ours to an inevitable, catastrophic conclusion.
Original article: jonathancook.substack.com
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