The article argues that many major systems in modern life exist because people need to cooperate with others who have their own goals, priorities, and limits. From families and governments to businesses and sports teams, societies build structures to solve the problem of coordination without resorting to coercion. The author contrasts persuasion with force, saying that persuading others is preferable to compelling them.
It then presents a broader critique of powerful people who refuse to accept the independence of others. The piece compares children, bullies, and billionaires, suggesting that some wealthy elites continue a childlike belief into adulthood: that other people should arrange their lives around their wishes. In this view, technology is becoming a new way to pursue that old impulse.
A central theme is the rise of artificial intelligence as a tool for replacing human workers, collaborators, and even social relationships. The article says billionaires have been especially receptive to AI promises because they imagine a world in which human beings are no longer needed. It uses Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as an example, describing automated warehouses and arguing that automation can increase pressure on human labor rather than eliminate exploitation. The text claims that when expensive automation is installed, companies push remaining workers harder to maximize returns, creating unsafe and dehumanizing conditions.
The article also criticizes Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, saying he may want to replace real friends with chatbots to keep users on his platforms and increase engagement. In this framing, AI is not just a labor-saving tool but a substitute for genuine social interaction, one that removes the unpredictability and stubbornness of real people.
The political argument extends this logic to immigration and aging societies. The article says rich countries with shrinking workforces need migrants to sustain economic growth and public services, but anti-immigration politics create a contradiction. AI is presented as a possible escape hatch for leaders who want to satisfy xenophobic voters while still keeping economies functioning. The author argues that, in this fantasy, machines replace migrants because machines do not ask for rights, dignity, or cultural belonging.
More broadly, the piece claims that automation is part of a long-standing effort by the wealthy to transform workers into a more vulnerable class, and now into people deemed unnecessary. In the most extreme vision, the owners of AI systems would be able to run the world without ordinary people at all, leaving the public dependent on their systems and priorities. The article links this idea to Sam Altman’s interest in biometric universal basic income, portraying it as a dystopian model in which people receive only controlled access to services managed by AI infrastructure.
Overall, the article presents AI not as a neutral technological advance, but as a political and economic project shaped by elites who want fewer human constraints. Its conclusion is that this worldview only makes sense if one does not believe other people are fully real, autonomous beings.
