A.I. is Progressing Faster Than You Think!

[sdv]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)
While listening to Nate Jones analyze the upcoming approx trillion dollar IPO's (initial public offerings) for two of the largest A.I. companies, Anthropic and OpenAI in his latest video at 'OpenAI Just Filed For Its IPO. The Real Story Isn't The Trillion Dollars, it occurred to me that we're seeing something like what my grandfather saw, when electricity went from the laboratory, to a deeply integrated world-wide infrastructure, a century ago.

Then it was power going "BIG". Now it's intelligence going "BIG".

The electric power grid did not replace all power. The intelligence grid will not replace all intelligence. Both were, or will be, expanded and refined in many ways, opening new opportunities for (back then) industrially produced power or (coming to us now) industrially produced intelligence, including down to small devices like say a solar powered "smart" watch ... where the industrial scale is on the back end, making millions of the same small device.

As I posted to Nate's above video:

So Anthropic and OpenAI become like the Westinghouse and General Electric of electrical equipment, a century ago. Destined to become huge while the underlying technology was advancing quickly, but then having to compete with many other smaller, sometimes much smaller, companies specializing in particular refinements of the technology and use cases.

In short: Machine power (aka electricity) == Machine intelligence (aka A.I.).

If neither psychopaths with nukes nor a galactic plasma current wave take down our civilization, one might be able to predict the shape of A.I. development over coming decades by comparing it with the shape of electricity development, a century ago.

That is an interesting way of looking at the development of AI that I had not thought of before.

I go way back to the printing machine for how new technology changed the world. Not only was knowledge (and entertainment) made available to all, but if you could cobble together the funds, you could print your own pamphlet and then distribute it. Along with enlightenment, disinformation spread like wildfire, but what an opportunity for advancing civilization!

[bojancan]

We know AI is a tool... but, how can you be pro..or anti tool.... at the end, the tool is either useful or it's not.... as I understand... but at the end... at the end.. not to useful to anyone... my 2 cents...
Interesting talk......

June, 15
CRASH IMMINENT: Ed Zitron Says AI Valuations Are Complete FRAUDS

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jDGPnaX-86Y

[/YOUTUBE]

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by bojancan (here)
We know AI is a tool... but at the end... not to useful to anyone... my 2 cents...

Skilsaws might be dangerous tools, that have removed a few limbs by accident, and that one would not let a child play with.

But many a carpenter would not want to forego his Skilsaw. I find AI to be quite useful.

[lake]

I consider the current AI's the same way that I used to consider the internet 25-30 years ago .... it could be a great boon for this world or it could be the major point of "despair"!

The internet has not become the "great boon" which I had hoped for although it still has a chance to reverse what the greater percent of it has become and hopefully that will happen? <<< I live in my own little realm of positivity

I do use AI and even pay for AI (I pay because the free versions are nothing compared to the paid ones!) and the currently available ones are quite something! And they are even getting better and better very quickly.

I am self taught at writing code and never had a "job" in code development (multi trade carpenter) but I have made many websites, forums and currently look after 2 of my own servers and 1 for a company (only because the bloke who owns the firm is a mate of mine and I like him as a being) but the way that AI creates code is amazing! And the speed which it does it quite shocking !!!!

I wrote some code back around 2008 which was for a firm to track 1000's of individual parts through multiple processes and the code was image based.
Since then I have always thought that a "game" could be made from that code but I never did anything about the consideration.

A couple of weeks ago Grok Build was released and I have been using that!
I gave it the old code, told it what I wanted and after some chat about different concepts which I wanted to achieve .... I have the game I always thought could be made from the old code

It hasn't taken weeks of work, just some of my free time (still work full time) and in truth, I have played the game for longer than it took Grok Build to make it!

It actually made an AI for the game (for people to play against) with 3 levels of difficultly and after refining that game AI quite a bit .... it plays a very strong game!

I asked Grok Build to create a file describing how the AI works and (in part ) this is what it made:

## Technical Explanation

The AI is a **hybrid negamax alpha-beta searcher** with an explicit two-action look-ahead for the first move of each turn.

### Core Architecture

- **Negamax + alpha-beta pruning** (`search` function):
A standard game-tree search. It explores possible sequences of actions, alternating between itself and the opponent. Alpha-beta pruning cuts off branches that cannot possibly affect the final choice, dramatically reducing the work.

- **Depths** (in actions, not turns):
- Easy: ~3
- Medium: ~4
- Hard: ~6

Because each "turn" gives two actions, depth 6 on Hard means it can look roughly three full turns ahead (its action, yours, its, yours, its, yours) in the main search.

- **Snapshot / Restore** (`snapshotState` / `restoreState`):
Before trying any hypothetical move it saves the entire relevant game state (all piece positions and charges, both barriers, breakthrough counts, whose turn it is, actions left). After exploring that line it restores the state exactly. This lets it reuse the real movement code without corrupting the visible game.

- **Search guards** (`aiSearching` flag):
While the AI is thinking, it temporarily replaces `log`, `render`, `playSound`, `checkWin`, `endGame`, etc. with no-ops. The actual state mutations still happen (so the rules are followed exactly), but the player sees and hears nothing until the AI has chosen its real moves.

From what I can gather, this game AI is much better that near all other game playing AI's??
Of course, I have gone through the AI code and it would have taken me years to make (IF I had ever thought of the way to do it but as said, I am not a coder!) so I rather impressed with Grok Build!

Is it good or bad that AI can write code like this and so very quickly through many files, changing each file as the new version requires from the prompt I give?

I think that it comes back to "Is the internet a force for good or bad?"

And that narrows down to "Who controls it and are they a good or bad person?"

But right now .... I have a game that I couldn't have made (or it would have took me so very long to do and I haven't that time to give it) which I have held in my mind for near 20 years .... So right now, for me, selfishly, .... I will say yes (but I retain the right to change my mind and consider it a bad thing at the drop of my hat!).

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by lake (here)
Of course, I have gone through the AI code and it would have taken me years to make (IF I had ever thought of the way to do it but as said, I am not a coder!) so I rather impressed with Grok Build!

As a professional (now retired) programmer for almost a half century, AI is deeply trained on and now thinks like I do. In those areas where I am current and active, I take the lead. But in the 999 out of 1000 areas that I might want to venture into, AI knows that area fluently and guides and teaches me as fast as I can keep up, or would gladly just do the work for me, if I wanted. In my prime, I could stay actively skilled in a handful of areas at once, whereas AI can do that in thousands of areas at once, and at 10 or 100 times the speed.

(The above applies in particular to Fable 5, which we coders got a brief opportunity to use last week. Opus 4.8 is close, and other more general purpose chatbots have their uses, but not usually as high end coders.)

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)

Posted by lake (here)
Of course, I have gone through the AI code and it would have taken me years to make (IF I had ever thought of the way to do it but as said, I am not a coder!) so I rather impressed with Grok Build!

As a professional (now retired) programmer for almost a half century, AI is deeply trained on and now thinks like I do. In those areas where I am current and active, I take the lead. But in the 999 out of 1000 areas that I might want to venture into, AI knows that area fluently and guides and teaches me as fast as I can keep up, or would gladly just do the work for me, if I wanted. In my prime, I could stay actively skilled in a handful of areas at once, whereas AI can do that in thousands of areas at once, and at 10 or 100 times the speed.

(The above applies in particular to Fable 5, which we coders got a brief opportunity to use last week. Opus 4.8 is close, and other more general purpose chatbots have their uses, but not usually as high end coders.)

Replying to both lake, and Pythonic Paul.

Lake, your graphic is hard for me to interpret as a playboard for chess, but I want to believe that your AI helper is a mini-me of Deep Blue.

Paul, there is thunder sounding into my open window right now, so I am reminded of the fragility of electronic works. Anyways, how do you feel about the advantage, say the leverage, that coding gives you over the rest of us normie plebes? Please express your response as if you are a twelve year old dynastic prince in 3 or 4K BCE Egypt.


Now about me, haha.

Some months ago, maybe last calendar year I said I would announce it if I ever pulled da trigger on using AI. Well, that time has come.

A month-plus ago, I got sold a change in phone service. Been a hassle, lessons learned. My new provider (Bell, away from Telus) offered 12 months of free Perplexity Pro, apparently a CDN$30/mo thing. I tested a couple simple tasks, but then my deeper quiry return disappointed me. Wanted to see how my classmates in uni turned out, with their accomplishments and present states.

If anyone knows how to use that AI (Perplexity Pro) effectively, I’m all ears. I do get that quality of prompts/questions is crucial for working these bots.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Johnnycomelately (here)
Anyways, how do you feel about the advantage, say the leverage, that coding gives you over the rest of us normie plebes? Please express your response as if you are a twelve year old dynastic prince in 3 or 4K BCE Egypt.

Perhaps its the same leverage my car's mechanic has over me, who can fix my car (er, eh, chariot or whatever they had in ancient Egypt) when I can't readily do so. Of more importance to me, I got paid some decent money for many years because companies needed good coders, so I had leverage to get more lucrative jobs than many workers.

Posted by Johnnycomelately (here)
12 months of free Perplexity Pro, apparently a CDN$30/mo thing. I tested a couple simple tasks, but then my deeper quiry return disappointed me.

Posted by Johnnycomelately (here)
Wanted to see how my classmates in uni turned out, with their accomplishments and present states.

I find Perplexity.ai quite useful, and it's one of my favorite AI tools ... for particular uses.

The strength of Perplexity.ai is that it is constantly searching high activity websites and keeping up to date. I observe this both in the answers I get from Perplexity, and in the Avalon server logs, where I can see who or what is scanning the public side of our forum.

For a recent example of how I used Perplexity, I was having trouble sorting through the various Amazon pages for a particular kind (specific connectors and cable lengths and such) of ear buds, that I use to listen to audio on my computer. The mostly Chinese vendors of such mass produced items do not accurately describe and delineate all the 100's of minor variations of ear buds and their cabling, and Amazon's sales and search pages don't help either. After an hour or two of not being able to be sure what I was looking at met my requirements or not (frustratingly confusing and contradictory details on each Amazon page). I finally asked Perplexity. It figured out exactly what I required, and what I preferred, and guided me to exactly the right product ... which I am now happily using.

In summary, I use Perplexity for more complex queries that it can answer from the well trodden websites that I know or suspect it tracks daily, or for the latest news it would have seen in those searches. Google has gone from being my primary search engine to being less frequently used mostly for cases where a few key words or names will bring up information that has been stable for a while, like using an encyclopedia, dictionary, or atlas.

I doubt Perplexity tracks millions of ordinary individuals across their various moves, social media posts, academic studies and employment, so I wouldn't expect Perplexity to fill me in on what happened to my school classmates, except in the case one of them turned out to be famous, or infamous.

As when dealing with shop keepers, coworkers, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, ... one interacts with some potentially useful ones a bit to figure out what they're good at (or not so good at), and how efficient they are of your time, money, and patience.

[lake]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)
As a professional (now retired) programmer for almost a half century, AI is deeply trained on and now thinks like I do. In those areas where I am current and active, I take the lead. But in the 999 out of 1000 areas that I might want to venture into, AI knows that area fluently and guides and teaches me as fast as I can keep up, or would gladly just do the work for me, if I wanted. In my prime, I could stay actively skilled in a handful of areas at once, whereas AI can do that in thousands of areas at once, and at 10 or 100 times the speed.

(The above applies in particular to Fable 5, which we coders got a brief opportunity to use last week. Opus 4.8 is close, and other more general purpose chatbots have their uses, but not usually as high end coders.)

I can say that it (the advances in AI writing code) has taken a lot of the "fun" and "learning" out of the hobby I had!

As an example .... The game was designed (by me) with 7 "flows" each of which has 6 positions within the flow.
Once that was all working and tested, I considered that 7 positions per flow may be a "tougher" game?

So I copied the 6 "position" directory into a new directory, gave that file path to Grok Build and told it that I wanted to see how a 7 position game would play?

It re-wrote all the files so that it would now play as 7 positions per flow (including changing the game AI) and did it in under 5 minutes!

I have tested and played the 7 position per flow game multiple times and there is not an error anywhere which I can find!

There is nothing for me to "fix".

BTW .... the 6 position is a fast, tactical game which averages about 5-8 minutes to play .... the 7 position takes about 12 -20 minutes to play and the game AI is much stronger in the 7 position game!

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by lake (here)
I can say that it (the advances in AI writing code) has taken a lot of the "fun" and "learning" out of the hobby I had!

...

There is nothing for me to "fix".

Maybe it is time to take on more challenging problems.

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)

Posted by lake (here)
I can say that it (the advances in AI writing code) has taken a lot of the "fun" and "learning" out of the hobby I had!

...

There is nothing for me to "fix".

Maybe it is time to take on more challenging problems.

Solid advice, for other life quandaries as well. On the other hand, mom told me that pyramids aren’t built in a day.

[Richter]

CANCELLING AI: A TRANSCRIPT
June 12, 2026
Joseph P. Farrell

As you've guessed, I've been on an artificial intelligence focus in this week's blogs, with Monday's blog about the "gnostic technique of contrived orthodox contexts" being used by an artificial intelligence to make fake diagnoses based on completely falsified "data" injected into the data stream, and with Wednesday's blog about Anthropic's co-CEO Olah speaking to Vatican officials, presumably to get the Vatican's imprimatur on Anthropic's AI in a rather more sophisticated version of the same Gnostic tactic of contriving an orthodox context for something.

But in today's blog, some artificial intelligence executives are playing the role of Nebuchadnezzar/Nabuchodonossor and are seeing the hard mathematical handwriting on the wall. This story is courtesy of L.G.L.R, and before we get to it, let me clarify why today's blog is about a video: today's blog is less about the video than about its transcript, which L.G.L.R. graciously also included in the email alerting me of the story, and included in such a way that he had clearly not simply copied and pasted the transcript, but had edited it back into a readable and acceptable form. So not only a thank you for sharing the story, but a double thank you for including a nicely edited transcript. It is the transcript to which we shall refer, and not the video. In any case, the video and more importantly, the transcript) decimate the transhumanist agendas surrounding artificial intelligence that were so confidently advanced a few years ago.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NBtUgWn-nHs

CONTINUE: https://gizadeathstar.com/2026/06/ca...-a-transcript/

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Richter (here)
CANCELLING AI: A TRANSCRIPT
June 12, 2026
Joseph P. Farrell

As you've guessed, I've been on an artificial intelligence focus in this week's blogs ...

The Youtube video you linked is not of Joseph P. Farrell lamenting the dangers of AI, but rather has this title and description:

Why Tech CEOs Are Quietly Cancelling Their AI Plans

Tech CEOs spent the last two years promising AI would replace workers, cut costs, and transform everything. Now they're quietly cancelling data centers, rehiring humans and admitting the math doesn't work. From Microsoft pulling back on billions in infrastructure to Starbucks killing its AI inventory system after it couldn't count milk, Uber burning through a year of AI budget in four months, and one company accidentally spending $500 million on AI tools in a single month the AI hype is hitting reality. Even Sam Altman now says he was wrong about AI replacing jobs.

===

My reply to the linked "Tech CEOs ... Cancelling ... AI Plans" video:

Yes - when any major change rolls through rapidly, one can find examples of major mistakes and retakes, on both sides of the coin. Big change provides fertile ground for Big mistakes.

Some will wish they had considered AI more quickly, and some will wish they had done so less quickly.

===

My reply to Joseph P. Farrell's laments:

AI, like books, radio, television, and the Web, provide(d) opportunities to the would-be tyrants for greater surveillance and control.

They also provide(d) opportunities to would-be truth seekers for sharing insights and coordinating their efforts.

Information and intelligence tools expand information and intelligence opportunities for all.

[Squareinthecircle]

[QUOTE=ThePythonicCow;1718112]

Posted by Richter (here)
CANCELLING AI: A TRANSCRIPT
June 12, 2026
Joseph P. Farrell

As you've guessed, I've been on an artificial intelligence focus in this week's blogs ...

Why Tech CEOs Are Quietly Cancelling Their AI Plans

Tech CEOs spent the last two years promising AI would replace workers, cut costs, and transform everything. Now they're quietly cancelling data centers, rehiring humans and admitting the math doesn't work. From Microsoft pulling back on billions in infrastructure to Starbucks killing its AI inventory system after it couldn't count milk, Uber burning through a year of AI budget in four months, and one company accidentally spending $500 million on AI tools in a single month the AI hype is hitting reality. Even Sam Altman now says he was wrong about AI replacing jobs.

...

Why didn't the AIs see that coming? Did the math change? I would consider that a black mark on their recognized abilities.

IDK if this has been posted yet but thought it was worth a gander:

https://substack.com/@youcantmakethi...ction&r=2ld5cy

[ExomatrixTV]

• AI is Changing Creativity Forever (15 Disturbing Examples):

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZZst_psfeWw

• 00:00 How AI is changing creativity
• 00:44 Restoring the past with AI
  
• 02:02 Recreating voices and music
• 03:39 AI translation and virtual artists
  
• 05:32 AI avatars replacing creators
  
• 07:34 When AI content hides itself
  
• 08:39 Viral AI videos and deepfakes
  
• 10:22 Bringing creators back to life
  
• 11:16 De-aging and unfinished art
  
• 12:24 Building AI music videos
• 17:13 The future of creative work

[onawah]

What is "Agency"?
July 5, 2026
The Ethical Skeptic
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2026/0...hat-is-agency/


"The Age of Artificial Intelligence compels a redefinition of agency from the traditional notion of capacity for independent action to the modern reality of participation within reflexive intelligence networks. Agency is no longer simply what an individual can accomplish alone. The individual is compensated with agency through network participation, while the network amplifies that agency beyond the capability of any single actor.

An abstract representation of a network of people connected by glowing lines, with one person at the center.
Agency has traditionally been defined as the capacity of an individual to intentionally act in the world according to their own will, making choices, and holding the capability to produce desired outcomes despite external constraints. Under this philosophical construct, a person possessing agency is regarded as the “author of their own actions.” Historically, this popular social conception of agency has revolved around four fundamental defining elements:

Intent – What do I seek to accomplish?
Choice – Am I free to select among available alternatives?
Capability – Do I possess the means, knowledge, and competence to act?
Responsibility – Am I the causal origin of the action?

In the pre-AI era, agency was largely a function of intent enabled through capability. An individual’s or institution’s ability to translate purpose into action depended primarily upon what they sought to accomplish and the means available to them. In the age of AI, however, agency becomes fundamentally reflexive. Every exercise of intelligence simultaneously generates information about itself, creating a continuous feedback loop between actor and observer. Effective agency is therefore no longer determined solely by intent and capability, but by the interaction between (1) intent and capability, (2) the ability of others to infer that intent and capability from accumulated behavioral traces, and (3) one’s own ability to accurately perceive and regulate one’s true motivations, assumptions, and operational footprint.

Traditionally:

Agency = “I act.”

Our new formulation is closer to:

Agency = “I function as a node within larger networks whose influence I may neither fully perceive nor fully control. I derive personal potency from their power.”

Agency, in effect, transforms from being a property of the individual node to becoming a property of the network. In doing so, agency undergoes an ontological shift. It no longer resides principally within the individual, but emerges through the individual’s participation in a larger reflexive intelligence or club architecture. The individual inherits power by actively aligning with the objectives of the network, exchanging a measure of autonomy for the amplified capability and influence that the collective confers. The individual is compensated with agency through participation, while the network amplifies that agency beyond the capability of any single actor. Note how this is analogous to the concept of loosh as a currency.

This is an extraordinary shift.

The Recursive Ecology of Agency and Artificial Intelligence

AI thus transforms agency from a one-way expression of will into a dynamic process of inference, self-awareness, and adaptation, in which productive and extractive actors alike are amplified while becoming increasingly observable — to others and, potentially, to themselves.

Historically, agency has been understood primarily at the personal level as the capacity to intentionally translate purpose into action. In its simplest form, this relationship can be expressed as:

Impact (agency) ≈ Intent × Capability

In the Age of AI, however, agency becomes fundamentally reflexive. It is no longer determined solely by an actor’s intent and capability, but also by the continuous interplay between self-perception, external inference, and situational awareness.

Perhaps the most visible societal example is the transition from one-to-many messaging toward AI-assisted microtargeting and synthetic media. Campaigns and influence operations can rapidly generate tailored content for different audiences while AI simultaneously measures reactions and refines subsequent messaging, creating a reflexive feedback loop between message, audience, and strategy. Increasingly, social media platforms learn what captures our attention and then give us more of it.

Over time, we are exposed to fewer ideas that genuinely challenge our thinking and far more that reinforce it. The result is not merely an echo chamber, but what might more aptly be termed a thunder chamber — an environment in which selected narratives are continuously amplified until they begin to feel like independent thought. Participants gradually come to believe that “consensus” shares their views, when in reality they are often experiencing a carefully curated representation of the world rather than the world itself. They have not changed the world, the network has changed them.

A generalized expression for Effective Agency may therefore be represented as:

Agency = Intent × Capability × Self-Awareness Deficit x Ability to Observe Others and Adversaries / Observability by Others and Adversaries​

where:

Intent × Capability represents the traditional foundation of agency.

Ability to Observe Others and Adversaries reflects an actor’s capacity to understand the environment in which they operate.

Observability by Others and Adversaries represents the extent to which one’s intentions, capabilities, and operational patterns can be inferred (intelligence definition of agency) by external actors.

Self-Awareness Deficit represents the gap between an actor’s perceived motivations, assumptions, and operational footprint and their actual behavior. As this deficit approaches zero, effective agency increases.

Accordingly, AI is likely to reorganize agency at a societal level into two dominant philoeconomic orientations. The historical precedent is familiar: political systems have repeatedly evolved toward bifurcated (meaning “two party” – even if only one power influence exists in reality) coalitions that aggregate capability, information, and influence around shared interests and common objectives. As AI becomes the primary engine of information, and monetary systems undergo a parallel digital transformation, these two infrastructures will increasingly converge. AI will therefore tend to serve the philoeconomic objectives of those who employ it, organizing capability around the competing aims of Productivity and Extraction.

Shoshana Zuboff, in her work, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism defines surveillance capitalism as “the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.” 1 Essentially, this form of human capital is exploited to empower these two competing agencies in the process of monitoring and redirecting our individual will.

This evolution underscores the necessity of ethical skepticism. As agency becomes increasingly reflexive, the disciplined suspension of judgment becomes not merely an intellectual virtue, but a prerequisite for preserving independent agency itself.

The default result is the emergence of two broad classes of agency (with a small ‘a’ – the Meta-Extractive Actor below featuring a capital ‘A’). The Productive Class encompasses those whose primary orientation is the creation of value through labor, entrepreneurship, engineering, education, medicine, defense, science, and the arts. The Extractive Class encompasses those whose primary orientation is the acquisition or control of value through governance, regulatory capture, cronyism, organized crime, financial manipulation, enterprise virtue, and black markets — often forming pragmatic alliances under the enduring maxim, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” As these philoeconomic classes accumulate increasingly sophisticated AI capabilities, the agency of the individual — in the traditional philosophical sense — becomes progressively subordinate to the agency of the collective systems within which that individual operates.

A diagram representing agency in artificial intelligence, highlighting two types: Productive Agency AI, which creates value through various fields, and Extractive Agency AI, which captures value through manipulative means. The graphic emphasizes the philosophical tension between these two types.

The Meta-Extractive Actor (The Ultimate Extractor)



A hidden strategic actor need not seek victory for either the Productive or Extractive Class. Rather, it seeks to maximize influence over the relationship between them. Its objective is not participation within the system, but the ability to shape the system itself. Conceptually, such influence may be exercised through several mechanisms:

Amplifying Polarization — By emphasizing the most extreme representatives of each philoeconomic class, the actor encourages both sides to perceive the other as an existential threat, thereby reducing trust, cooperation, and the possibility of independent alignment.

Creating Dependency — If both productive and extractive actors become dependent upon infrastructure controlled by the intermediary—whether technical, financial, informational, or institutional—the intermediary’s leverage increases irrespective of which class expands or contracts.

Controlling the Frame — The greatest source of influence lies not in assigning specific labels, but in controlling the authority to define them. By establishing itself as the principal arbiter of what constitutes legitimacy, extremism, justice, intolerance, truth, misinformation, science, or disinformation, the intermediary gains disproportionate influence over reputation, incentives, and access.

Harvesting Information and Value Asymmetrically — When interactions between both philoeconomic classes pass through common informational, financial, or technological platforms, the intermediary acquires a richer understanding of the entire system than any individual participant possesses. That informational asymmetry itself becomes a durable strategic asset from which both intelligence and economic value may be extracted.

Two governing principles emerge from this framework, both working to the advantage of the Meta-Extractive Actor:

Power accrues to whoever possesses the authority to define the categories by which others are judged.
Its objective is not participation within the system, but the ability to shape the system itself.

Artificial intelligence becomes the working mechanism through which this higher-order agency is exercised. It provides the means not merely to influence political discourse, but to observe, model, predict, and ultimately shape the reflexive interactions between the Productive and Extractive Classes. AI thus becomes the modern instrument through which a Meta-Extractive Actor may derive leverage — not simply by exploiting political polarization, but by extracting informational, economic, and strategic value from the interactions of the entire system.

In this sense, the traditional political sacrifice to the gods evolves into something considerably more powerful: a reflexive tithe upon intelligence itself. Rather than exploiting only political will, the Meta-Extractive Actor acquires the capacity to influence the flow of information, capital, reputation, opportunity, and ultimately the life trajectories of those who become participants within the system.

It is precisely this evolution that elevates ethical skepticism from an intellectual discipline to an operational necessity. It is the operative stance which is fundamental to why we were the first to detect Covid mRNA-vaccine-induced cancer and non-Covid natural cause excess mortality. As agency becomes increasingly reflexive, the disciplined suspension of judgment, continual testing of assumptions, and conscious resistance to inherited narratives become the means by which independent agency is preserved. In the Age of Artificial Intelligence, ethical
skepticism is no longer merely the foundation of sound inquiry — it is the final refuge of authentic agency."

“What is Agency?”; The Ethical Skeptic, WordPress, 5 Jul 2026; Web, https://theethicalskeptic.com/?p=117650

Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019: Shoshana Zuboff defines surveillance capitalism as “the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.” She argues that these data are transformed into prediction products and ultimately used to shape future behavior through what she terms instrumentarian power. While Zuboff’s work focuses primarily upon the extraction and behavioral modification of individuals, the present work extends this framework by proposing that AI precipitates an ontological migration of agency itself — from an attribute of autonomous individuals to an emergent property of reflexive intelligence

[ExomatrixTV]

• AI Made Carrots Irresistible:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qbzdPLtnoMU

• 00:00 - 97% to AGI? Why AI Suddenly Feels Different
  
• 04:43 - ChatLLM by Abacus AI: A Privacy-First AI Assistant
  
• 06:35 - AI Prosthetic Hand Learns Your Body and Recognizes 19 Gestures
  
• 08:26 - AI Predicts Which Product Designs Grab Human Attention
  
• 10:37 - AI Made Carrots Irresistible Using Visual Saliency
  
• 11:51 - Why the Vibe Coding Window May Be Closing Faster Than You Think
• 14:49 - The Consciousness Paradox: Is the Mind the Universe's Greatest Mystery?
  
• 17:02 - Researchers Give Drones a Sense of "Pain" to Prevent Crashes
  
• 19:31 - Robots Can "See" Touch with Color-Changing Artificial Skin
  
• 23:29 - Meta Launches AI Game Creation from Simple Text Prompts
  
• 25:58 - New Research Helps People Spot AI-Generated Faces
  
• 27:45 - AI Changes Its Behavior Around Authority. Here's Why It Matters.
  
• 29:30 - AI Is Reshaping the Economy, But Nobody Agrees How to Measure It
  
• 31:15 - Could Random Wobbles in Time Finally Explain Gravity?