Bursting Through the Guardrails
JAN 30, 2026
The AI hype train is here and is speeding ahead like the fastest Japanese bullet train. It’s a “revolution,” and AI is going to change everything and/or doom us all. Or maybe it’ll usher in a glorious utopia? New technologies always seem to mobilize both the doomsayers and the utopian dreamers.
Amazingly, ChatGPT is already recording 800 million weekly active users. Meanwhile, investment in AI races ahead—not without serious implications. Today, I noted these two stories at the New York Times:
Technology
How the A.I. Boom Could Push Up the Price of Your Next PC
OpenAI in Talks to Raise as Much as $100 Billion
So, the demand for chips may inflate the price of your next computer even as investors in AI continue to throw money at its promise.
Given the nature of the corporations and governments making decisions about AI and its future, I’m not optimistic for an AI-driven utopia. Count me among the (guarded) pessimists.
Why? Here’s one snippet I gleaned from the New York Times the other day:
28,000,000,000
— That’s how many liters of water Microsoft said it would use for its data centers in 2030, according a report obtained by The Times. The company had promised to cut its water use, but big tech companies are guzzling water during the A.I. frenzy.
That’s an enormous quantity of water when water scarcity is a major issue for our climate change-driven future.
Along with that, I saw where the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s ever been to nuclear Armageddon. In their statement, the scientists cited the rise of AI and its application to weapons and war as one reason for the clock’s creep toward midnight.
So, what gives with this “AI frenzy”? My guess is that AI is being harnessed by the powerful for their purposes. They’re not investing big money to help the little people. This is not to say that every AI application is nefarious and evil. But I think the general trend will be AI-driven “efficiency,” meaning lots of people losing their jobs, along with AI-driven surveillance and control, in the name of greater “safety and security,” naturally.
One thing is certain: we shouldn’t blame the technology. Whatever AI is or becomes, it will be a manifestation of us—but, more worryingly, a manifestation of the agendas of the capitalists, the corporatists, and the warmongers among us, those who are always seeking dominance, even “full-spectrum” dominance, including AI and everything it’s capable of, “guardrails” be damned.
Readers, what do you make of all this?
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