Democracy blindsides Silicon Valley’s power players looking to transform the world with AI

Source: www.theguardian.com · Section: headlines · Bias: Center-Left · Published: Sun, 27 Sep 2026 11:00:03 GMT

‘The push against datacenters speaks to the frustration of people who don’t feel they are making the choices in their lives’The Stanford ethicist Rob Reich was once invited to a dinner organized by a Silicon Valley mogul to discuss what a state designed to maximize science and tech powered by commercial models might look like. The gathered technologists were drawn to the idea of building a small nation-state dedicated to the endeavor, Reich recalls in “System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot it”.When Reich asked whether this state would be a democracy, he got a cool no. “Democracy is too slow, and it holds science back,” he was told. “To optimize for science, we need a beneficent technocrat in charge.” Continue reading...

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The same story across the political spectrum (15 sources)

Left: Bill Gates says unchecked AI could ‘cause a billion deaths’ in call for regulation — www.theguardian.com
Center-Left: Oxford lets OpenAI train its AI models on Bodleian Library — www.theguardian.com
Left: OpenAI halts training of latest models as reports mount of AI agents going rogue — www.theguardian.com
Center: ‘Charming and disarming’ … how Meta’s technology-packed Muse harnesses the power of cuteness — www.theguardian.com
Center-Left: ‘My husband has to remind me: You’re not a real cop!’ Siân Brooke on the perils of playing a tough Blue Lights ‘peeler’ — www.theguardian.com
Center: Trump asked Xi Jinping if China would like to buy US weapons, American ambassador says — www.theguardian.com
Center-Left: ‘The same struggles as 100 years ago’: exhibition highlights lives of Sami people in Sweden — www.theguardian.com
Right: Broken promises, confiscated land: the hyperscale AI datacentre being built in a tiny Indian village — www.theguardian.com

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