Inside the well-funded AI doom machine — and who is benefiting from it

Ah, Bernie Sanders, the ageing crusader against billionaires, has decided that the real threat to the working class is... sentient toasters. He hosted a panel featuring top Chinese AI officials to discuss the 'existential threat' of AI. Because nothing says 'international cooperation' like inviting the architects of the world's most sophisticated surveillance state to lecture us on safety. The irony is so thick you could spread it on a bagel.

The New York Post, no stranger to hyperventilating about bogeymen, dubs this the 'well-funded AI doom machine' — implying some shadowy cabal is making bank on existential fear. Guess who funds most AI safety research? The same labs creating the alleged doom. It's the perfect racket: build the fire, sell the extinguisher, then collect the insurance. Meanwhile, Sanders and his Chinese comrades get to look statesmanlike while doing precisely nothing concrete.

The 'who is benefiting' part is almost too easy: every think tank, conference organiser, and grant-seeking researcher who has discovered that 'we're all gonna die' is a much easier pitch than 'we need better interpretability tools.' Sanders gets a moral high ground, China gets a seat at the table without changing its surveillance goals, and we get another panel where everyone agrees something must be done, which is the political equivalent of a round of applause. Good luck sleeping through that.