If there was one clip I would want every American to listen to today it would be this one. It’s a 10 minute essential message that is long overdue.
This is not catastrophising, it’s a recognition of the societal threat it represents. This not about using ChatGPT to write a s is about the intersection between AI and robotics and that’s the accelerant on the fire that is AI.
I have worked with it and I have seen first hand what it can do in terms of accelerating workflow and application development. It is formidable technology and we are way past the point at which the genie can be put back in the bottle.
I wrote about it at length last year and in the short intervening period since, it has advanced beyond comprehension. As Bernie points out here, the threat to jobs is existential, but what’s important to recognise is that is the jobs most at risk are not at the bottom of the economic food chain, they are middle and upper middle class jobs.
From accountants to bankers to research scientists to lawyers to programmers, a whole raft of middle and upper management roles are about to quickly become extinct.
I believe we face the threat of an economic extinction event. Just as in 1928 when the wealth gap was not dissimilar to what it is today, it took an economic depression and a World War to drive an economic reset that also reset the wealth gap.
These are dangerous times and unless we regulate this technology, society itself is facing an extinction event of its own. AI renders human labour acceptable collateral damage in this revolution. Declining population will shift from being a liability to an asset.
The oligarchs believe they have insulated themselves against the human catastrophe that will follow. They believe they are on the right side of a winner takes all strategy and they might be right, but I suspect they are more likely wrong, because the fly in the ointment they are ignoring is CHINA.
Xi is just sitting back while the West sets itself on fire. They are approaching the AI revolution in a totally different way. They will win because they don’t have to worry about the shareholder class. They don’t plan in 2 year election cycles, they plan in 10 and 25 year cycles.
While the US was obsessed with large language models, China has integrated AI into manufacturing automation which is central to their wealth engine. They don’t have to build infrastructure, they’ve already done it. They don’t need to invest in supply chain infrastructure because the Belt and Road initiative is already in place.
They own deep port and road infrastructure across Europe Africa and Latin America and have a distribution pipeline ready to go. They are electrifying their economy to remove reliance on fossil fuel imports. They are adding capacity to their energy grid faster than any nation on earth.
In 2025 alone they added 543 GW with solar accounting for almost 50%. They have now surpassed 1,000 GW in solar power and given they manufacture 92% of the world’s solar modules they have ZERO supply chain issues as they march on to cheap energy when the U.S. is running away from renewable energy.
They also added a further 80 GW of wind power. If you’re looking for a broader energy comparison, The capacity added by China since the end of 2021 already exceeds the entire power system of the United States.
The critical point here is that the top two global powers are approaching the AI revolution from two opposite angles. The Chinese are seeking to integrate it into society, at the same time the oligarchs are seeking to replace society. This is why China will win and become the number one global economy.
The world is at an inflection point and I’m afraid greed will prove to be the downfall of American imperial ambition. Will the rich survive? Of course they will, they always do. As for everyone else, I’m afraid you’re on your own unless they are stopped. My advice is to learn Chinese.
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