Techno-Fascism by ChatBot.
FROM THE NEW YORKER
...The federal government is, in effect, suddenly being run like an A.I. startup; Musk, an unelected billionaire, a maestro of flying cars and trips to Mars, has made the United States of America his grandest test case yet for an unproved and unregulated new technology. He is hardly alone in his efforts to frame A.I. as a societal savior that will usher in a utopian era of efficiency. The tech investor Marc Andreessen recently posted on X that wages will “logically, necessarily” crash in the A.I. era—but that A.I. will also solve the problem, by reducing the price of “goods and services” to “near zero.” (Any explanation of how that would happen was not forthcoming.) Last month, Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI and perhaps Musk’s primary nemesis, launched a five-hundred-billion-dollar data-center initiative called Stargate with the coöperation of Trump. But Musk, with his position as a close Presidential adviser, and with office space in the White House complex, is uniquely and unprecedentedly poised to fuse the agendas of government and Silicon Valley. (On Monday, in what looked like an effort to troll Altman and derail an investment deal, Musk led a group of investors in a nearly hundred-billion-dollar bid to acquire OpenAI.) In a recent article for the advocacy nonprofit Tech Policy Press, the respected A.I. researcher Eryk Salvaggio labelled Musk’s activities as an “AI coup.”Utterly crazy time.
A government run by people is cautious and slow by design; a machine-automated version will be fast and ruthless, reducing the need for either human labor or human decision-making. Musk’s program has already halted operations altogether at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was responsible for more than forty billion dollars in foreign aid in 2023, and at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that may have drawn Musk’s special notice for its track record of suing tech companies for deploying loosely regulated technology. Trump and Musk both love to blame the country’s problems on the so-called deep state, the federal employees who maintain the government’s day-to-day operations. As many of those people now find themselves locked out of their offices, with their work phones deactivated, a new, inherently undemocratic deep state is moving in to fill the void: a system imposed by machines and the tiny élite who designed them. With doge, Musk is not only sidelining Congress and threatening to defy the courts, helping to bring the country to the point of constitutional crisis; he is also smuggling into our federal bureaucracy the seeds of a new authoritarian regime—techno-fascism by chatbot…
TOM NICHOLS COMMENTS ON THE SEAN HANNITY INTERIEW W/MUSK &TRUMP
...After an hour of this rambling and sometimes weird [Hannity] conversation, all I could think of was George W. Bush’s reported reaction to Trump’s first inaugural address: “That was some weird shit.”
This low-key fandango was probably good enough for MAGA fan-servicing purposes, but seems unlikely to reassure the millions of Americans doubtful that the president and the plutocrat know what they’re doing. The president seems only dimly aware of the details of Musk’s adventures, but he’s certain that a smart guy like Musk is furthering his agenda—whatever it is. Musk, who answers to no one, is full of fervor to kill off government agencies he does not understand, because unelected rich men firing probationary federal employees is apparently how true Jeffersonian democracy is restored to an ailing America…
Below, a Facebook friend posted this.
Lotta people took it seriously.
UPDATE: RICK WILSON
Trump Joins The Wrong Side in WWIII
Historians may one day mark this week as the beginning of World War III.
Like every great conflagration in history, it did not start with fireworks or ringing declarations but with the quiet, hollow tread of cowardice masquerading as strategy or capitulation draped in the threadbare costume of strength and the folly of baring every card while claiming negotiation.
No rousing Sunday headlines heralded another world war, just the tragic end of an alliance built. There was no grim storm of missiles over Western Europe or Russian tanks thundering through the Fulda Gap. The only civilians being killed were in Ukraine, dead at the hands of the Russian beast.
But make no mistake: just as France and Britain once closed their eyes to Hitler’s threat, we are now living in the early hours of a devastating conflict born of men too weak to stand for what is right.
It was Neville Chamberlain who gave appeasement its most infamous face. This weekend, we learned Chamberlain was a rookie.
For a genuinely catastrophic betrayal of the West, look no further than the staggering realignment ordered by Donald Trump this week.
In just five days, America has become a client state of Russia, subservient, obedient, and just as accepting of the slaughter and evil for which Vladimir Putin is famous...
Historians may one day mark this week as the beginning of World War III.
Like every great conflagration in history, it did not start with fireworks or ringing declarations but with the quiet, hollow tread of cowardice masquerading as strategy or capitulation draped in the threadbare costume of strength and the folly of baring every card while claiming negotiation.
No rousing Sunday headlines heralded another world war, just the tragic end of an alliance built. There was no grim storm of missiles over Western Europe or Russian tanks thundering through the Fulda Gap. The only civilians being killed were in Ukraine, dead at the hands of the Russian beast.
But make no mistake: just as France and Britain once closed their eyes to Hitler’s threat, we are now living in the early hours of a devastating conflict born of men too weak to stand for what is right.
It was Neville Chamberlain who gave appeasement its most infamous face. This weekend, we learned Chamberlain was a rookie.
For a genuinely catastrophic betrayal of the West, look no further than the staggering realignment ordered by Donald Trump this week.
In just five days, America has become a client state of Russia, subservient, obedient, and just as accepting of the slaughter and evil for which Vladimir Putin is famous...
Trump just insulted and overtly threatened the Ukrainian President this afternoon.
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