The Greatest Story Never Written
Notes from the Atlantis Bureau.
"I think there is a world market for about five computers."
— Thomas Watson, IBM’s CEO, in the 1940s
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
— Ken Olsen, president of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
Dear Friend and Reader:
Apropos of Chiron conjunct Eris, of Pluto newly in Aquarius, of Sedna newly in Gemini about to be joined by Uranus, and of Saturn conjunct Neptune with Jupiter all on the Aries Point — those are the astrological sigils of our moment — I have a question.
What’s it all about?
It’s happening right before every sense except for smell and taste (loss of which is attributed to an as-yet unnamed disease that I call “digititis,” since on the internet you cannot taste or smell anything).
In case you’re missing the connection, what really happened in 2020 is that the world became even more digitized, very fast, all at once. All that had not been sucked up got sucked up. Harvard and the daycare turned into Netflix. And people claimed to lose the only two senses that do not translate into the digital environment.
And as for the next war in West Asia, specifically that between Israel and Iran: There is a dual connection: first, the collapse of identity makes people and countries aggressive. It’s impossible for a country to know who and what it is under digital conditions. Second, we are witnessing jockeying for global dominance in the forthcoming “new world” of AI.
Finally, Sam Altman has said that a “significant fraction” of the world’s electricity should go to powering AI. Both Meta and Microsoft have entered nuclear power deals with energy providers — but oil will become increasingly precious as demand increases and supplies run low. Burning gas and oil is still the most accessible way to make electricity — and Iran has plenty of the stuff.
The Problem Would Smell Like…
What if we could smell the AI problem? What would it smell like? Perhaps a volatile solvent that dissolves the myelin sheaths that protect your nerves. It would smell like the old dry cleaning fluid.
That said, I’ve decided to take a more objective approach to the AI problem. As you’ve likely heard in my broadcasts and read in prior articles, I have not held back my profound concerns. One of them is the lack of appropriate response by nearly everyone — by which I mean seeing the problem, and talking about it.
It occurs to me that nobody knows what to do or what to say except maybe groan, or to download the Meta or OpenAI app that will finally help you get your life in order. Maybe getting a “realistic” girlfriend from Honey.AI is the thing to do.
By taking an objective approach, I mean that going forward I will be descriptive and state my concerns. I’ve decided that it’s not my job to wake anyone up. My job is to stay awake. I’m a reporter, and a reporter’s job is to tell you what’s happening: what I’ve learned any given day or week. “The truth” is a controversial topic. My service is to be a fair witness. Determining the truth is up to you.
First, a Story about Airplanes
For a long time, the notion that humans could fly was considered impossible. Then through the late 19th century, more and more outrageous machines were created that ended up in a heap.
Then the Wright brothers started to figure it out. After extensive reading about flight dynamics in birds, their first task was to build the world’s biggest kite, and from there, learn how to build gliders. The concept was flight without the propulsion, tethered to the ground. They learned about the dynamics of where the air met the canvas surfaces of their creation.
Their superpower was being bicycle guys. That meant simplicity. And they wanted to make the thing work for its own sake — for “the sport of it,” as Orville Wright later said. They were not interested in wealth and fame. After a series of experiments, they came up with an engine reliable enough, powerful enough and light enough to loft an airplane and sustain flight.
On the morning of Dec. 17, 1903, they succeeded. The public reaction was tepid. They moved their operation from the Outer Banks to the world’s first airfield, a cow pasture outside of Dayton. There, they succeeded in mastering powered flight, making many laps around Huffman Prairie, an 84-acre field and living to tell the story.
A Story about the Press
The local newspaper ignored their success. I read an interview with the then-editor, who himself seemed confounded that he hadn’t covered the story. World War I and “flying aces” came soon after. Aviation is one of the most important technologies of our lifetimes, and it’s astounding to think there was a time when nobody much cared.
This is typical of the relationship between the press (meaning the news media generally) and technology. They don’t understand it, they don’t really care, and it’s only interesting if they can make money or have a big sensation. You cannot trust most reporters to get a technology story right.
Today, we do irrelevant in the other direction: ohh how cool! Buy or buy into that thing. And today, we are into an issue where the implications are being sold as technological but are actually profoundly spiritual in their impact and influence.
By spiritual I mean that this is about our relationship to existence, to ourselves, and to whatever you think of as God. If that is new territory for you, then the AI problem will seem irrelevant. If you understand something about the relationships involved and where AI is infiltrating and disrupting them, it will make a lot more sense.
Nobody Looks Back
When you sent your first email or made your first online purchase, did you imagine that hundreds of massive shopping malls would be turned into ghost towns? By the 1980s, malls had another extremely important function in the U.S. and elsewhere: they served as the town square. They were the place kids socialized and old people went to have a safe, dry place to walk around and get some exercise.
When the iPhone came out, who exactly imagined that it would rearrange all of our social relationships, turn people into dopamine addicts, convert teenagers into depressed, antisocial zombies and then transform the entire internet into pay-to-play spam?
Oh, I forgot one other thing: who associated the cell phone or the iPhone with being stalked, tracked, traced and spied on? (My first phone, obtained in 2001, was my last one without GPS, and I had naively resolved to keep it forever for that reason.)
Who is Looking Forward? A Skim of the Headlines
Here are some of the headlines my team is tracking. Notice that there is no discussion of ethics. There is no discussion of what this is going to do to children — when they are staring at AI-generated YouTube channels?
Anyway — here goes, the headlines as they have been arriving at the Planet Waves Atlantis Desk:
Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly recruiting a team to build a ‘superintelligence’
Meta Strikes 20-Year Nuclear Power Deal With Constellation Energy (Gates already has a 20-year deal with Three Mile Island)
Sam Altman Says "Significant Fraction" of Earth's Total Electricity Should Go to Running AI
Millionaire futurist creating 'mutant humans' reveals when new race will make ordinary people ‘obsolete’
Sam Altman on humanoid robots: They're coming and 'it's gonna feel very sci-fi’
Using AI makes you stupid, researchers find
A Humanoid Robot CEO Is Running a Real Company in Poland
AI is getting smarter every day —with thought processes already eerily similar to humans: study
Are You Concerned Yet? Here are Some More
AI-Generated Kids’ YouTube Channels Are Taking Over
The AI revolution is likely to drive up your electricity bill. Here's why.
Tesla’s Optimus and the Humanoid Robot Race Nobody’s Ready For
Nvidia CEO: You won't lose your job to AI—you'll 'lose your job to somebody who uses AI'
Axios CEO Warns AI Will 'Reorder Society'
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act would ban states from regulating AI
Microsoft leader says adapting to the AI era requires ‘activating at every level of the organization’
If We Let AI Tell Our Stories, We'll Be Lost In The Dark
Artist traps AI in RAM prison, forces it to contemplate its own mortality
Elon Musk calls Grok answer a ‘major fail’ after it highlights political violence caused by MAGA supporters
Rock ‘em, Sock ‘em — Robot Martial Arts Competition
China has held the world's first robot martial arts tournament and I can't think of a single thing that could possibly go wrong
As a college professor, I see how AI is stripping away the humanity in education | Opinion
Researchers explain AI's recent creepy behaviors when faced with being shut down — and what it means for us
Behind the Curtain: What if predictions of humanity-destroying AI are right?
AI is remaking — and breaking — the web
Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves
'Artificial intelligence is not a miracle cure': Nobel laureate raises questions about AI-generated image of black hole spinning at the heart of our galaxy
Amazon CEO tells employees to expect cuts to white-collar jobs because of AI
Deception, Cheating and Lying — Now Integrated with Every Computer Network on Earth
AI godfather Yoshua Bengio says current AI models are showing dangerous behaviors like deception, cheating, and lying
Elon Musk "concerned" by ChatGPT ignoring seven shutdown commands in a row during this controlled test of OpenAI's o3 AI model
AI could solve puzzles posed by twin stars in 'mere minutes or seconds on a single laptop'
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says Most Physical Things We Have ‘Aren’t Going To Need To Be There in the Future’; It Will All Be Holograms
Top Google exec says AI will rival humans in just 5 years and predicts we’ll ‘colonize the galaxy’ in 2030—but he draws the line at robot nurses
Anthropic’s AI is writing its own blog — with human oversight
AI Doesn’t Care If You’re Polite to It. You Should Be Anyway.
Anthropic unveils custom AI models for U.S. national security customers
Humanoid robots step into Amazon’s delivery game with real-world San Francisco tests
Rossen Reports: How AI may be driving up your rent
This is a Total Takeover of (Your) Existence
So the big story is that we are now in our Atlantis moment. Put together the pieces and you will see that what we are calling AI should really stand for “all inclusive.”
Every last thing is being swallowed. This is being pushed on us FAST and from every conceivable angle, whether it’s managing your business or a “girlfriend” who will undress when you tell her to.
The old medium (in its entirety) becomes the content of the new medium. The old medium is the world itself and everything written or created in recorded history; the new medium is AI, as daunting as “god almighty” but neither creative nor loving.
The Atlantis Moment is that we are at the tipping point where humans and human society are becoming 100% the product of their technology. This is the point where we lose control. This is what the myth of Atlantis is about: they lost control of their technology and became its product.
And the story here is: does humanity sink under the waves, or do we wake up and resist and regain control, if that can even be done? Do we even try? What is the nature of the conversation?
The headlines, which are largely about externals, leave out two issues. First is the ethical issue. It’s all just assumed to be part of progress, the morality of it all be damned. We want ROI! Shareholder value! Download the app!
Second and closely related is what this is doing to our concept of being human. That’s not in the future. That’s right now. It’s about how you conceive of yourself and of your existence; what you think your purpose is; which means your concept of why you are alive and what you’re doing here.
The Ultimate Spiritual Issue
This is a spiritual issue. In fact it’s the ultimate spiritual issue, ever. It’s about the leveling of all that makes us human: our creativity, our sensitivity, our problem-solving abilities, or love of an intellectual or artistic challenge, and the human privilege of grappling with matters of right and wrong.
Our ability to relate to one another as natural people.
Most people did not make such good use of their natural intelligence. Nearly everyone has quite a lot, but utilizing it requires a kind of autonomy and courage that are totally alien and can get you in trouble. Thinking is hard work (for many). So this total onrush and onslaught of the artificial kind may come as a relief. It’s being sold as a panacea.
And so people will willingly give up their ability to think, and blame it on all the ads that were encouraging them to do so. Don’t be surprised if your last sentient thought goes something like, “I wish I had not given up so easily.”
I don’t know if there’s still time. I am not planning on giving up so easily, and I’m here to tell the developing, late-breaking story of what humanity does, as it does it — or as it does nothing.
With love,
Your faithful astrologer,
— Additional Research: Shawn Boyle, Atlantis Bureau Chief
From Conversations With God, Book 3
“As I have said, this isn’t the first time your civilization has been at this brink. I want to repeat this, because it is vital that you hear this. Once before on your planet, the technology you developed was far greater than your ability to use it responsibly. You are approaching the same point in human history again. It is vitally important that you understand this. Your present technology is threatening to outstrip your ability to use it wisely. Your society is on the verge of becoming a product of your technology rather than your technology being a product of your society. When a society becomes a product of its own technology, it destroys itself.”
I think about the men steering this apocalyptic race toward a future no one asked for, and I want to understand why. Why do Zuckerberg, Altman, Gates, and the others desire a future where humanity is diminished, made redundant? These wealthy, successful men have it all. But having it all isn't enough. This indicates a profound spiritual emptiness, a lack of empathy, and the inability to self-examine and question themselves; instead, they turn outward in a misapplied search for fulfillment rather than inward, which is the only place true self-enlightenment and peace can ever be found. And so it goes, spilling onto the rest of us, either too complacent or too enamored with shiny things to see the inherent danger of surrendering our power of choice, our ability to individuate through creating, learning, or loving by taking the long way around, by using process, trial and error, learning through mistakes, instead of jumping right to the end, using an AI hack and thinking you are winning when, in fact, you are losing everything that gives life meaning. What we fail to understand is that meaning emerges from struggle, from the messy process of being human. When AI shortcuts replace human creativity, learning, and connection, we don't win – we surrender the very experiences that make life worth living. And as an addendum, I absolutely hate the fake, surreal AI images and photos that do not and will not ever exist in reality and are now showing up in my dreams. I wake up afraid.
Been a reader of your work since 2003. This - hands down - is your most sweeping, thought provoking essay to date.
Shifting from the external of waking others to the internal of staying awake and reporting from that context interestingly makes your message more powerful.
Thank you, brother.
I started in the ‘personal’ computer industry in 1978. By 1989, I knew we were headed for trouble on a scale so all-encompassing, it was invisible. 36 years later, I now realise it was the ultimate Trojan horse for hapless humans.
Some days, I get glimpses of the genesis and it doesn’t appear to be human. Then the Overton window explodes and I go feed my chooks to stay grounded.