Courtesy of wikipedia.org
When I was in my 50s, my stockbroker encouraged me to buy shares in a company he claimed would be a game-changer in energy conservation. I purchased 1000 shares at $11 each. Then, I waited. When the stock dropped to $1, I was ready to give up, but my broker advised me to hold on, so I did.
Decades went by, and I forgot about the company. Twenty-five years later, the stock is $70 per share. Why? Because computer chips require massive amounts of water and energy to manufacture, and with the advent of AI, that need has increased. Data centers are being built faster than viruses, so it follows that any technology that conserves energy is a winner.
Unless we find more ways to conserve, says The Union of Concerned Scientists, human existence will soon be on a collision course with technology for survival. Already, data centers have increased their energy dependence from 1.9 to 4.4 percent, and this need is expected to triple over the next three years. (“AI is using our Energy and Water—and Polluting Your Air,” by Pablo Ortiz Partida, Catalyst, Fall 2025, pg. 17)
Unfortunately, fossil fuels power these installations, emitting toxic substances into the air at concentrations harmful to human health. No one should be surprised that the number of people afflicted with asthma is growing, the experts say. (Ibid., pg. 17 )
Another unquantified danger to humans is job loss. A Pew report warns that as technology takes over the workplace, unskilled workers will struggle to earn enough money to afford rising food and energy costs. (Ibid. Pg. 16)
If history is a testament to human behavior, designing regulations to avert a crisis is as popular as the Principle at a high school dance. Where money and power are concerned, caution be damned. As with the development of the atomic bomb, future generations are left with the consequences of that technology.
AI poses a dream of unprecedented wealth to those who are on the ground floor of its development. Not surprisingly, oligarchs tout the technology’s promise with the enthusiasm of snake oil peddlers. They fawn over Donald Trump, the man who holds the key to their future fortunes, like starlets introduced to a famous movie director.
To his credit, Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor, resisted the golden fantasies of AI when he wrote Order 14110. It called for the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. But Trump, a man who never saw a lump of gold he didn’t like, rescinded the order. Instead, he opened a pathway that allows dark money to flow into AI’s development and even barred state and local jurisdictions from passing regulations that might hinder its development. His argument was:
“As with any breakthrough, this technology brings the potential for bad as well as good, for peril as well as progress. But…it’s not going to be a reason for retreat from this new frontier.” (“Trump’s Oppenheimer Moment,” by Michael T. Klare, The Nation, November 2025, 53.)
Trump’s cavalier approach reflects an attitude typical among the super-rich. They can afford to be. Should disaster befall, they have built for themselves–not cinder block bunkers like those the middle class might afford–but acres of underground luminous luxury.
If safety means anything to the rest of us, we need to escape the Matrix of consumerism and convenience, the opiates that AI will enhance. For some, these drugs may be enough to constitute a life, but even they should know the system is unreliable. Faced with a conundrum it cannot solve, AI dissembles and tells lies. Technicians describe these events as “hallucinations,” defects which they cannot fix, and which leave humankind with an assemblage it cannot trust. (Ibid., pg. 52).
Even so, the oligarchs who created the system seek to be rewarded. Hungry for government funds, they want the taxpayer to pay for future AI development–a move that treats We the People like consumers once again. Then, with the protection of Order 14110 removed, they can launder their profits in the dark pool of cryptocurrency and escape taxes.
Russian citizens pay for government grift because they have no choice. But Americans do have a choice. Companies that put people and democracy last should never come first with us.
Remember, during the upcoming holidays, warm, fuzzy commercials may make us smile, but the oligarchs behind them aren’t our friends.
BOYCOTT: Tesla, Apple, and Amazon
