The biggest AI threat isn’t artificial superintelligence wiping out humanity in a fit of mechanical vengeance like some digital Old Testament God, it’s the same oligarchs and empire managers as usual inflicting the same evils and abuses as usual upon their fellow man. We’re already presently watching the empire building AI into its killing machines and causing all kinds of horrifying problems while these technologies become more and more complex and unpredictable. CNN reports that US military AI “almost started a war” with China when it hallucinated intelligence showing a Chinese ship transporting nuclear weapon components to Iran; US military planes were apparently already in the air preparing to attack the vessel before human intelligence picked up on the error. A recent Pentagon report has officially concluded that an over-reliance on Palantir’s AI-powered command-and-control system Maven contributed to the bombing of a school in Minab which killed 120 children attending classes on the first day of the US-Israeli war with Iran. We learned early on in the Gaza holocaust that the IDF was using AI to help it bomb suspected Hamas members when they are at home with their families rather than when they are out in the battlefield using a program called “Where’s Daddy?” — a bit of Israeli humor about the fact that they would be killing the children of Palestinian resistance fighters when their fathers came home. We’re seeing politicians like Bernie Sanders voice concerns that “AI could soon be smarter than humans and function outside of our control,” but the most obvious and imminent threat right now is not that artificial intelligence will outsmart us and escape our control, it’s that it is being fully controlled by humans who are stupid and evil. Again, we know for a fact that powerful nuclear-armed military forces are knitting AI into all their systems. We’re watching them do it, right in front of our faces. An increasingly complex and confusing element has been added to an environment of already tense and dangerous military standoffs around the world as the US and its allies work to absorb the few remaining nations who have managed to retain sovereignty into the imperial power umbrella. And yet recent weeks have seen the mass media flooded with punditry speculating about possible scenarios under which AI might perhaps wind up leading to human extinction. We already know the most likely scenario under which AI will get us all killed. If it happens, it will be because rich and powerful sociopaths knit these technologies into war machinery that is designed for killing humans at mass scale. Duh. These developments are unfolding in the context of a frenetic new arms race with China in which nobody’s willing to tap the brake pedal for fear of falling behind. Any talk of regulation or slowing things down before they get out of control is dismissed because the competition-based systems which currently govern human behavior have thrust us into a nightmare of constant military expansionism and brinkmanship instead of collaboration and harmony, all fueled by the fact that this paradigm makes tech plutocrats and war profiteers obscenely wealthy. That’s clearly the most immediate existential threat that AI poses to our species right now. There’s also the only slightly less frightening threat of artificial intelligence enabling our rulers to use mass surveillance and autonomous weapons systems to stifle any revolutionary political movement before it gets off the ground, locking us into this freakish capitalist dystopia until the planet is an uninhabitable wasteland. In any case, this isn’t a new threat. It’s the same old threat with new toys. Capitalism must end, and the empire must fall. Our very existence depends on it.

Some guy broke into my house and set up residence in the study room. He says his grandparents used to live in this house and now he won't leave. My family and I tried to kick him out but he got very violent. He brings in his friends and they help beat us up if we ever try to make him leave. They keep saying I hate the guy because of his religion. I don't even care about his religion, I just don't like sharing my house with some random outsider who broke in here out of nowhere and took my stuff. "The poor guy just wants one room to call his own," his friends say in his defense. "You and your family have all the surrounding rooms in the house, and yet you have a problem with the guy having sovereignty over ONE room? That's kind of bigoted and evil." He keeps throwing stuff at me and my family if we get too close to his door, saying we make him feel afraid. His friends say it's understandable because his room is surrounded by enemies who hate him just for existing, but we don't hate him for existing, we hate him because he forcibly inserted himself into our home and keeps throwing stuff at us. And what's weird is whenever I explain my situation to normal people they completely understand where I'm coming from and agree the guy is being a dick, but if I talk to the police or the local paper they always side with the guy. Almost everyone in town hates this guy now because of how he's been acting, but everyone in power does everything they can to protect him. It's like there's a total disconnect between the authorities and the will of the public on this particular issue. It's having a nastier and nastier effect on the community at large all across town. The police have been showing up to arrest anyone who says they think the guy's being an asshole. The paper keeps printing these obnoxious lies telling everyone that me and my family are the real criminals and the guy is actually sweet and awesome. It's really unfair. Things have been so tense and hostile ever since this guy showed up. I honestly think it would be better if he'd never moved in here at all, but whenever I say that his friends claim I'm saying the guy should be exterminated and try to get me in trouble. It's a real mess, man. That guy sucks.