“We are not talking enough about the tech oligarchs as a specific problem!” says political analyst Sarah Longwell on a recent Pod Save America episode . “The tech oligarchs — they are bleeding us. There’s plenty of promise for AI and plenty of problems, but we have to balance our humanity. There’s a reason Elon Musk talks about immigration all the time. He wants to make sure that we think immigrants are the problem and not the tech oligarchs. They are playing a distraction game.” She’s right. This is a big deal. So, taking full advantage of the guest spot that Bill Press has graciously granted me while he is on sabbatical in Italy, I took a deep dive this week into something that impacts ALL the issues we confront — the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Not the software itself, but the corporations and business titans who are in a race for AI dominance. In their efforts to create the most advanced, most capable AI system, they are transforming large parts of America with gigantic data centers In the process, they may be transforming American society as well. My guest was Tim Murphy, an investigative journalist at Mother Jones for over 16 years. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he’s got the cover story in the new May/June issue of Mother Jones that is emblazoned with the title: Power Hungry, How the AI Oligarchy Gobbled Up America . Tim and Mother Jones argue that the tech titan quest for wealth and power is destabilizing our democracy and reshaping our society. Tim spent months traveling America looking at the rural cities and towns threatened by data centers the size of an airport that would completely overwhelm local water, sewer and electrical systems. Then there’s the noise. “It’s like living next to a jet engine,” he told me. He explained that new tech overlords are already richer than the robber barons of the Gilded Age and are now all concentrated in one industry, racing for AI dominance. In the process they want to fundamentally change our society – whether we like it or not. You can listen to the episode as an Apple Podcast here . You can listen to it directly from you phone here . You can listen to it on a variety of other platforms, like Spotify, here . This is scary stuff. Both for the communities being torn apart by the gargantuan data centers (as The Washington Post reported today while somehow managing to omit the name of the Big Tech titan behind the data center destroying Archibald, PA.); and for the agenda these oligarchs have in mind for America (hint: it does not include democracy.) I hope you have a chance to listen. Thanks for reading Strategy & History! This occasional newsletter is FREE. Please like and share. Subscribe for free to receive new posts directly. There is no need to support my work. I love doing it. SubscribeRead More
The Tech Oligarchs Power Grab
