Lock Sam Altman Up in A Data Center

He’s stealing your freedom

The Future Is Now

AI and its applications are snowballing. Web 3, algorithms and robots are being implemented everywhere. Have you ever wondered how AI might impact you or members of your family?

While AI is being positioned as an extension of the Enlightenment and progress, what’s on the horizon is a complete redefinition of privacy, work, education, social control and war. Don’t kid yourself, AI is not being designed to augment human behavior, but to eliminate it.

Kings College London recently ran war game simulations on Anthropic, OpenAI and Google. They discovered that in 95% of scenarios the AI choose to deploy nuclear weapons.*

Yet, the AI agenda is being advanced by a relatively small, male elite who are techno-centered, and wealthy beyond imagination. They are also right-wing conservatives.

Companies are asking why pay for humans when you can employ machines?

The Techno-Centered Personality

Four decades ago, I wrote Technostress: The Human Cost of The Computer Revolution. Technostress, based on my research, pointed out that the computer revolution was full of false promises. That it wouldn’t actually increase reading comprehension and test scores of children, reduce the number of hours worked per week, or address inequalities between rich and poor.

Inequality between social classes actually exploded. Most received crumbs while others became super rich beyond imagination. Their riches were generated by computer manufacturing, software, and sales. Roughly 1 percent of the U.S. population now owns roughly 1/3 of the country’s assets and billionaires increased their wealth by 70% since 2019.

I also predicted that computers would trivialize work for masses of people, and turn cognitively normal and educated people into dial watchers and data entry automatons. My assessments were and are accurate to this day.

Deeper discoveries emerged from my research. They are driving the expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Pertinent discoveries include:

The rise of the techno-centered personality: a person who identifies more with technology than others or social outcomes. Such a person makes decisions that are based on technology—techno-centered decisions. They demonstrate little or no tolerance for ambiguity, and they process reality in the form of instrumental logic—-functionality and efficiency of means and ends, and yes or no logic, paralleling a computer’s operating system.

Our technology leaders such as Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and recently Sam Altman, for example, evidence a techno-centered personality. While it is tempting to characterize their personalities as autistic spectrum or obsessive compulsive, they are predominately techno-centered at the core of their being. Many of these techno-centered individuals drove the first computer revolution, amassed great amounts of capital and set the stage for web 3.0 and AI. They are active again.

Techno-centered personalities are most comfortable in electronic space, which they helped spearhead and create. Electronic space consists of an elaborate network of connected devices which connect us to everyday activities and each other. They connect us to others over social media, obtaining money from electronic outlets, or shopping via your desktop or mobile. Electronic space mediates all aspects of our everyday activities, from home to work to dating to medical care to deliveries. Genuine human relationships have become commodified and replaced by efficiency as a primary value. Swipe left for autos, dates or mates. They come in all colors and models.

An electronic network of connections is not a village, composed of face-to-face relationships, nor a genuine ‘friendship’ network. Perhaps one in a million individuals, for instance, might know the name or anything about their Uber driver or delivery person. No need to get personal, delivery is functional and transactional. Sign here, good bye.

All computer technologies and AI are located in electronic space, which is shaped by forces of capital accumulation— money. Money is the primary driver of electronic space. Capital accumulation is exponential due to the reduction of labor cost and increases in productivity. Traditional automation is being transformed now into hyper-automation as work is more and more conducted by AI and robots.

AI Myths

Myth # 1: AI will augment not replace humans.

Jack Dorsey, founder of Block fintech, recently terminated the employment of 4,000 people, roughly 50% of his workforce, because AI ‘tools’ have made their jobs redundant. Too bad, efficiency rules. His publicly traded stock jumped 40 percent on the news.

Industry pundits, like the CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie “useless” Dimon, have often panned AI, yet are now saying that white collar workers will face the same fate as Block employees within 18 months. Why have a human teller when you can query a bot? Why pay Jamie Dimon hundreds of millions of dollars when he can be replaced by an AI executive tool? In a few years, only fools would pay his salary level. This, by the way, applies to most Wall Street executives.

The impact will potentially affect 93 million workers, or roughly 60 percent of the U.S. labor force. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta concur. They have eliminated over 40,000 jobs in Silicon Valley alone. Unemployment rates, as predicted, are skyrocketing, caused by the same people and companies that are developing and implementing AI.

Not only white collar workers are at risk. Take truck drivers, for instance. New AI tools are enabling driverless trucks to make deliveries in short and long hauls. There are over 1,000 driverless truck experiments taking place successfully in Texas. This means that an unskilled observer can sit in a truck cab and watch the results of satellite and AI drive the truck. The truck driver now becomes an observer of machine intelligence. Goodbye Teamsters, local unions, and well-paying jobs with benefits.

The labor component in producing a new car, for example, drops from 15-20% to 5%. In other words, in economic parlance, the marginal utility cost of labor is headed toward zero. A new car rolls off an advanced assembly line every 60 to 90 seconds. Its embodied labor time is roughly 18 hours from beginning to end. The quality of work is assessed by an animated dog crammed full of electronics that converts visual observations to skilled judgements. It does not require petting or treats.

While this is a nightmare for labor, it’s a dream for industry. African Americans and Latinos are being disproportionately impacted. There is little need for their labor, and many AI programs have been proven to contain racist assumptions.

Myth # 2: Trust Me With Your Data

Open AI was first launched as a non-profit organization. It was co-founded by Sam Altman who is its current CEO. It was later transformed into a private company and funded by Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank with $110 billion. This is enough money to change the trajectory of most developing nations. Mr. Altman was named Time’s person of the year in 2025 for being one of the chief architects of AI. He’s worth over $3 billion at age 40.

Mr. Altman, recently forged an AI agreement to supply the Department of Defense (DOD), renamed the Department of War under President Trump, with the AI they required for what they called “internal military affairs”. This was done with the belief that the DOD would honor contractual guard rails put into place to protect Americans; to protect them from massive surveillance and weapons that could be used against them. Mr. Altman undertook this technology transfer and contract in response to the refusal by Anthropic—another AI firm– to do so. Anthropic stated that it was impossible to police the use of the AI. President Trump has barred Anthropic from all Federal contracts.

Does Mr. Altman, whose normally cogent, really believe that the DOD will follow their contractual agreements? As a techno-centered person he cared more about AI than everyday Americans. There is zero evidence that contracts mean anything under the Trump administration. Exactly the opposite is likely to happen. Americans will, most likely, become victims of the AI transfer which will be used against them—much as Palestinian citizens with no proven associations to Hamas were targeted by AI and killed in Gaza.

Mr. Altman, one might assume, was motivated by recognition of his company’s technology and the $200 million contract*. A $110 billion investment demands significant returns on capital just to breakeven, which may never happen.

Myth #3: AI has little environmental impact. It’s like clean tech.

The environmental soundness of AI is pure fantasy. A Microsoft data center “campus” in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, for example, is expected to use roughly 500,000 gallons of water per day. Water is often used for cooling. Total water consumption by AI data centers in U.S. could reach approximately 5 billion gallons per day by 2030, which is more than the total consumption of Denmark.

Furthermore, U.S. data centers are anticipated to consume around 10 percent of total electricity by 2030. AI data center electricity demand is estimated to rise by 165 percent in the same period of time. This means that electrical utilities will charge customers more for electricity annually. On top of this, the gas drivers to generate electricity produce higher levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Furthermore, the impact of noise pollution created by data centers, a constant, inescapable low frequency hum, has been reported by many communities up to three miles away from the ‘campus’. This has triggered several lawsuits, with poor communities disproportionately impacted.

When Mr. Altman was confronted by the press with the negative environmental reality of data centers, his response was well, humans by themselves consume lots of energy so it didn’t really matter. Perhaps his response was a bit self-serving.

Put AI on The Agenda

AI needs to be put on every local and national agenda

Companies view AI as a winning technology because it replaces human labor, significantly lowers costs of doing business, makes social control cheap, and generates huge wealth for a select managerial, financial and technological elite. It’s also proving to be a cornerstone of war as evidenced in Israel and U.S. against Palestinians and now Iran.

AI will displace millions of employees, wreak havoc on the environment, and render the next generation of kids as ignorant as ever. Ignorance means reading comprehension scores will continue to drop, the ability to discern which information is true or false will decline as will the command of skills and knowledge. What is the motivation to learn if all information can be accessed conversationally in seconds?

Individuals need to drop or stop paying for ChatGPT. Switch to Anthropic. Chat will become increasingly more dangerous as the Department of War uses it in whatever way they want.

We all need to initiate and/or join town hall meetings to get AI on every agenda. It’s important to join organizations like Color of Change, or 365.org, and/or contact your local representatives to seek governance of AI.

Over the last two years, for instance, organized citizen groups have blocked or delayed $64 billion in local AI data center projects due to their potential environmental damage. Forget Sam Altman as part of the solution; he’ll eat every rabbit or hen in the cage.

Employees need to hold employers accountable. Push your union to open discussions. They need to fund employee transitions and displaced workers, unions for helping their members survive economically, and schools for opening discussions on the role of AI in life. Robots and algorithms need to be taxed to support people they displace.

A countrywide discussion needs to be undertaken on the redefinition of work, elimination of 40 hour or 32 hour work week and the societal importance of shared wealth. AI is enabling a flood up of capital; now there needs to be more than trickle down effect. Shareware should be given new meaning and installed immediately.

Genuine alternatives, if not created in practice, will end in disaster for most of the population and yet another technology will be squandered on the rich.