The Matrix, The Skynet

Timothy Snyder:

The global tech oligarchs, be they South African, Russian, or American, conspire with one another, while shutting the rest of us out of our freedoms, our democracy, and even our lives. They try to buy an American political party and try to ease its way into power. And they build their own kind of politics, one in which only they matter, one in which the rest of us will have no human rights, and indeed will not be regarded as human.

Such is the threat, and it is real, and elements of it are very new. But the general shape of the problem, the concentration of wealth and power in too few hands, was known to the ancient Greeks those two thousand five hundred years ago, and to the founders of the United States two hundred and fifty years ago. Five years ago, when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, we were reminded again what happens when a single individual controls the wealth and the media of his country. The selfishness and the fantasy of one person becomes the grief and the nightmare of millions.

It is no surprise that people allowed to gather such wealth and influence combine whimsy with terror.