Op-Ed: Big Tech Is Building a New Feudalism

As Big Tech, Big Finance, and Big Government collude to dig us into the unfathomable hole of artificial intelligence, an old country saying has new relevance: “If you find that you’ve dug yourself into a hole, the very first thing to do is quit digging.”

All across the country, entire communities are in an uproar as they learn that thousands of massive, billionaire-financed data centers are quietly being approved by their government officials, usurping farmland, local water supplies, and each area’s electric grid.

Why? So über-rich prigs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos can impose their grandiose, zillion-dollar schemes to displace human workers with super-intelligent bots. What’s not to like about that?

There are other major problems, too — including the sickening drone of gigantic cooling systems in each data center, running non-stop year-round, destroying community tranquility and people’s sanity; the sudden rise of global warming emissions caused by data center use of fossil fuels; the creation of easy targets for drone attacks on these sprawling interconnected computer networks; and the wholesale diversion of America’s research funding and talent to the private projects of billionaires.

Far worse, though, is that AI is the key for Musk, Bezos, and whoever else to impose a feudal, fascist, technocratic, rule over the rest of us — all in the name of progress. Maybe we should question this “future” before surrendering to it.

To help guide us, New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom recommends such useful books as The Nerd Reich, Technofeudalism, and End Times Fascism — plus Pope Leo’s encyclical letter on AI.

Follow Tressie’s series on battling Big Tech at JimHightower.com/TMC.