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by Joel Bowman
September 13, 2026
from
JoelBowman Website
"The sky is falling!"
~ A timeless reminder from
Chicken Little
Is
AI coming to kill us all...
or might
the companies have
an ulterior motive...?
This week our wretched species learned that there is a >10%
possibility that our AI Overlords, peace be upon them, will wipe us
out "by the end of the decade."
Hmm...
Since when was it given to man to know his
future?
Who decides these probabilities?
Over which timeframes?
Under what circumstances?
Experts, dear reader. Those who "know."
Oh,
and just in case you're wondering... no, it's
nobody you know.
So, there. Now you know...
The story began where all reasonable, reputable,
and reliable information finds its humble beginnings... in the
mainstream media.
Here's the headline,
from the WSJ:
Anthropic Researcher Quits
Over 'Out-of-Control' A.I. Fears
Info also
HERE
Concerns are rising inside AI labs that competition is pushing
tech companies to race toward self-improving models that risk
spiraling out of human control.
An Anthropic researcher is quitting the artificial-intelligence
industry over fears that the lab and its competitors are racing
to build systems they won't be able to control, a sign of
mounting safety concerns within top AI companies.
Jacob Coxon, a researcher who specializes in training new
AI models by having them consume vast amounts of data, said
Tuesday that he is leaving the company because he doesn't want
to participate in an industrywide rush to build AI systems that
can improve themselves, worried such systems could spiral out of
control and destroy humanity.
From the pages of the "world's most important business," the news
quickly spread to the public restroom door of the Internet, X…
Within hours, alarm bells were sounding from one
End of the World to the other,
apocalyptic visions breakdancing in journalists' crystal craniums as
they clamored for poll position in the hyperbole olympics…
Extinction Rebellion
As the breathless reportage from the eschaton frontlines
began to subside, curious noticers dared to do what
journalists used to do... and ventured some pertinent questions.
For starters,
how did a series of tweets from an account
with only a handful of followers, zero (0) previous activity,
and nothing at all to do with Taylor Swift's love life, generate
over 100M views within a matter of hours?
(The post is closing in on 170M views
as we type these comparatively non-viral words.)
Also,
is it merely a cosmic coincidence
that the tweets landed immediately (18 mins) after the WSJ
article broke?
Or that three of the very first people to
amplify Coxon's original message were heavy-hitting industry
advocates for AI regulation?
-
Nathan Calvin, general counsel at
Encode
-
Peter Wildeford, head of the AI
Policy Network
-
Daniel Kokotajlo, head of the AI
Futures Project,
...all co-hit "retweet" within 15 minutes of
Coxon's post.
Strange too that, within 24 hours, a dozen lawmakers had lined up
behind
Coxon, each with prepared, legislative proposals designed to
address exactly the kind of dystopian future that keeps the
junior-level employee awake at night... all with the magic power of
Blunt Instrument Government (BIG), naturally...
And just imagine, coincidence of coincidences, one of those
legislators was Rep. Greg Casar, co-author with Comrade
Bernie Sanders of the "Ban
Artificial Superintelligence Act," which was released
just six days earlier.
To recap:
Coxon, a junior research employee at
Anthropic, creates an X account in January... it sits as idle
and lifeless as a congressional confession box for eight whole
months... then suddenly, six days after Bernie Sanders
introduces a bill to heavily regulate AI companies...
Coxon quits, hits the media circuit, sounds
the alarms, and is retweeted to the moon and back by the loudest
advocates for sweeping government regulation of the very
industry same industry that has been playing the ol' Fear vs.
Greed game with the public since the very get-go.
And yet, by the time Coxon confirmed, in a
subsequent WaPo interview, that the media (if not the political)
coordination and amplification was, indeed, the product of,
human intelligence, carefully planned in
advance for maximum impact, most "low information" newsfeeders,
fear of the unknown now mainlined directly into their collective
amygdala, had already been processed and shuffled onto the
second phase of the story.
Aaaand... cue the chorus of headlines careful
skeptics had been bracing for all along, ink long dried, ledes typed
before the general public knew anything about rogue agents,
superhuman systems and digital doomsday...
"Okay, okay," we hear the protests.
"So Coxon may not have been a lone wolf with
a whistle... and maybe he did coordinate a media blitz, of
sorts.
But what about the other insiders, who
still work for major AI firms?
Why would an industry's key players
actively seek more governmental oversight?
Right when many of them are looking to go
public?"
Simple, dear reader:
The very same reason
Big Banking lobbies for
tighter, costlier congressional control... and Phillip Morris
was a major supporter
of FDA oversight in the '90s
and '00s... and
Big Pharma lusts over the
warm embrace of regulatory co-spooners,
... good ol' regulatory capture...!
Right now,
the A.I. field is relatively young and still wide open.
Even "established" players are susceptible to
disruption. But costly compliance raises the barrier to entry for
competition, ensuring only those with the deepest pockets can play.
And if
Anthropic,
OpenAI and the current leaders
of the pack can pay congress to dig a moat around their industry,
they will effectively establish a new American oligarchy in
the world's fastest growing industry…
And
Bernie Sanders will have helped
usher in the very thing he has been warning about his whole career.
Kudos, Comrade Sanders... Kudos...
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