Oligarchs, AI and fascism: The perfect storm against democracy

As Australia finally joins the voices calling for sanity on AI and the Ku Klux Klan say they find One Nation’s rise “heartening”, managing editor Michelle Pini examines what such developments mean for democracy.

IT’S NO SECRET that oligarchs are seizing control of our data, have accumulated more money than we could ever print (if paper money was still a thing, of course) and thus enjoy a humungous level of power.

It is also no secret that with this level of power, there is sadly very little, if any, accountability.

We have published a lot on this website about the many attacks on democracy over the years and we continue to do so, but it really is no exaggeration to say that what is happening now is truly unprecedented.

We have to realise how much power we have, and to stop being tuned out from the very real threat we face from a billionaire class that has gone off the edge of sanity into an altered reality.

UNFETTERED AI

The current panic surrounding AI, while often dystopian, is also not unfounded. Although it’s not AI or the constant advances in technology we need to fear, but the powerful people who control them.

Prime Minister Albanese announced today that a rogue OpenAI agent hacked the Medicare website, as well as the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Victorian Department of Health, and the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, and accessed private data in what is believed to be the first known case of its kind in the world.

If that's not alarming enough, it took OpenAI three months to disclose the breach and even then, the tech giant notified the Government using an email sent to a “public mailbox”. It took another five days before the PM was made aware of the breach.

Meanwhile in America, CNN reported that a recent ‘intelligence report circulated across the U.S. military … immediately set off alarm bells. … A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program’. This had the U.S. military on high alert, with military aircraft already in the air ready for action.

However, according to a CNN source, the report – which was generated with the help of AI – turned out to be “entirely false”, but it nonetheless also “almost started a war”, as 'any U.S. operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiralling into an armed conflict between the two nations’.

Author of The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, Gil Durán told the ABC:

Billionaires have become radicalised against democracy...

It's not just Trump anymore. It's a regime. And it's a regime that is funded and supported and strengthened by the oligarchs of Silicon Valley.

Journalist and former political staffer Durán’s book reveals how anti-democratic, anti-government, and aggressively anti-tax ideas began in Silicon Valley in the 1980s and 1990s. It details how influential tech entrepreneurs viewed democracy as a flawed operating system that needed to be replaced by a corporate dictatorship.

Indeed, the personal wealth of these Silicon Valley oligarchs is now greater than that of many nations — this one included. Musk alone reached the level of trillionaire earlier this year and there are 3,428 billionaires globally, with the richest one per cent now wealthier than 95 per cent of humanity.

Ox Fam projects there will be at least five trillionaires within the decade, though judging by their current growth trajectory of four new billionaires each week in recent years, this figure seems conservative.

Conversely, the number of people living in poverty has remained unchanged since 1990.

GETTING THE MONEY, NOT THE CASH

The slow but steady removal of physical money as a necessary legal tender and its replacement with electronic funds transfers and digital currencies has, of course, added to the power of the wealthy elite.

As Durán explains:

‘…Back in 1999, Peter Thiel (the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir) was predicting that official Washington DC would be too dumb to understand the encryption technology … and that "incredible technological forces" were pushing the world in the direction of digital currency and limited government.’

Since we can no longer physically buy much or even pay bills with actual money, it is necessary to provide personal information, including bank account details, for every transaction, making it easier for said oligarchs, via AI, to build their information and power base.

POTUS AND HIS DISCIPLES

Throw into this mix of obscenely wealthy people with the means and desire to create a new world order, one very unstable “genius” POTUS, and the recipes for disaster are both unlimited and more nightmarish than any science fiction writer could dream up.

Unsurprisingly, Trump has both resisted any suggestions of tempering the unencumbered growth of AI and actively introduced policies that break down democratic checks and balances.

Trump has also resisted or overturned any legal processes that may limit the ever-increasing wealth of aforesaid billionaires, of which he is one.

Back in the land of Oz, PM Albanese has begun to make some noise about the very real existential threat to "safety and security" unfettered AI expansion poses.

This week, the PM joined forces with 21 other signatories in an urgent plea to introduce safeguards to manage emerging risks, stating:

"AI must remain under human direction, oversight and control. It must be developed and used in line with international law."

The declaration, 'A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models', also suggests an international institution be created by the United Nations to 'convene states when capability thresholds are crossed'.

Unsurprisingly, Trump has immediately denounced this declaration, labelling it as "censorship" while:

'...The U.S. embassy made a rare submission on Australia's draft domestic laws, saying the reforms would amount to an "extraterritorial censorship of protected speech" and calling on Australia to exempt U.S. social media companies from the legislation.'

CAPTURE OF THE FOURTH ESTATE

And still back in Aus, where keeping minds small has been the aim of our Fourth Estate since the rise of billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s empire, the narrative is continually made smaller. This is done by propelling the likes of Pauline Hanson and Angus Taylor, who let’s face it, couldn’t come up with a single credible policy, let alone a policy platform between them.

Currently, they are both hanging their hats on lowering the cigarette excise because, well, probably because cigarette companies aren’t making quite the billions they once did.

These Trump disciples are also loudly resisting Australia’s UN declaration involvement, as well as any legislative moves to temper AI’s runaway growth.

THE FAR-RIGHT CHORUS

Pauline Hanson and her supporters are “offended” by a Nine interview with U.S. Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Thomas Robb, who praised One Nation’s rise in the polls and found it "heartening".

It seems, though its behaviour suggests otherwise, there is a line of sorts for One Nation and it ends with the Ku Klux Klan. After all, repeatedly broadcasting racist views over any available megaphone is fine, but not if people actually recognise them as racist.

Nine is now probably on the list of media outlets, along with the national broadcaster and Guardian Australia, banned from One Nation press conferences. Maybe there’s hope for them yet.

Of course, this does not exonerate the legacy media, whose constant elevation of Hanson and her band of Far-Right zealots as a credible electoral option is the reason we have to talk about One Nation at all. Or that the Liberal and National parties are considering forming coalitions with this excuse for a party.

It is also no coincidence that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is openly propped up by one of our own billionaires, Gina Rinehart — $2 million plane, anyone? Billionaires in general have also traditionally supported the once right-wing but now as Far-Right-on-steroids as One Nation, Liberal-National Coalition.

THE FUTURE

According to Durán,

"We have to realise how much power we have, and to stop being tuned out from the very real threat we face from a billionaire class that has gone off the edge of sanity into an altered reality."

He says there is now growing opposition in the form of movements such as "Purge Palantir" and "DeFlock" in the U.S. pushing back against oligarch power and influence, and opposing crypto, ever-increasing surveillance and other AI controls.

Encouragingly, Durán believes:

"People are waking up."

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