The mythology of Technology has a special altar for AI, artificial intelligence, which is reverently worshiped as the source of astonishing cost reductions (as human labor is replaced by AI) and the limitless expansion of consumption and profits. AI is the blissful perfection of technology’s natural advance to ever greater powers. The consensus holds that the advance of AI will lead to a utopia of essentially limitless control of Nature and a cornucopia of leisure and abundance. If we pull aside the mythology’s curtain, we find that AI mimics human intelligence, and this mimicry is so enthralling that we take it as evidence of actual intelligence. But mimicry of intelligence isn’t intelligence, and so while AI mimicry is a powerful tool, it isn’t intelligent. If we boil off the mythology and hyperbole, we’re left with another neofeudal structure: the wealthy will be served by humans, and the rest of us will be stuck with low-quality, error-prone AI service with no recourse. The promoters claim the mass culling of jobs will magically be offset by entire new industries created by AI, echoing the transition from farm labor to factory jobs. But the AI dragon will eat its own tail, for it creates few jobs or profits that can be taxed to pay people for not working (Universal Basic Income). Perhaps the most consequential limit to AI is that it will do nothing to reverse humanity’s most pressing problems. It can’t clean up the Great Pacific Trash Gyre, or limit the 450 million tons of mostly unrecycled plastic spewed every year, or reverse climate change, or clean low-Earth orbits of the thousands of high-velocity bits of dangerous detritus, or remake the highly profitable waste is growth Landfill Economy into a sustainable global system, or eliminate all the sources of what I term Anti-Progress. It will simply add new sources of systemic risk, waste and neofeudal exploitation.

I have frequently reported in my articles that politicians are not the main people who run the U.S., but that Wall St. billionaires and Silicon Valley billionaires do. Unlike publicly visible politicians who at least have the illusion of accountability, the billionaires who fund them usually do not. So it is a rare treat when I find an article like the one that The Information published in their Weekend publication that does just that, and exposes where a lot of the new “Far Right” ideology originates from that many Silicon Valley billionaires subscribe to. The article was written by Julia Black, and titled: “The Far-Right Guru Who Has Befriended Silicon Valley’s Extreme Factions”. Judging by the comments submitted to the article so far, it appears that this article is sending shock waves among those in Tech. Featured in the article is one of Big Tech’s own, J.D. Vance, who recently became Trump’s Vice President choice, and how he has been influenced by Peter Thiel, who for years has followed the teachings of Curtis Yarvin, who believes “democracy” in the U.S. should be replaced by a “monarchy” instead. These new Big Tech “conservatives” use familiar terms with the Right, but with completely different meanings. So while “limited government” is a traditional, conservative and libertarian value, they take it even further by advocating NO government. Curtis Yarvin’s idea of running America like a corporation began to influence Peter Thiel around 2007-2009. They began to see CEOs of Big Tech as “all-powerful rulers,” even suggesting that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs should have been given “absolute power over the state of California.” These ideas may seem outrageous and even “fringe”, but they have made inroads into American politics for years now, including Steve Bannon, who served in Trump’s first term.