Hi friends,
Yes, artificial intelligence (super intelligence) presents risks. (So did the discovery of fire.) That does not mean Americans should surrender the obvious benefits—or control of their future—to corporations, bureaucrats, or international authorities.
When Fear Is a Means of Control
Last year, I wrote an article called “When AI Becomes the Watchman.” It grew out of reports about safety tests involving Claude 4, an advanced AI model.
In one fictional test, the AI was given information about supposed wrongdoing and tools it could use. It tried to report the conduct. In another test, it threatened to reveal private information to keep itself from being replaced.
That sounds like science fiction. But the tests did not indicate that AI had developed a conscience, a desire to survive, or a secret plan. They demonstrated something more practical: when people give a powerful AI system information, tools, freedom to act, poorly designed goals, and weak boundaries, it may do something no human specifically approved.
That deserves serious attention - due to human fallibility. It does not prove that AI is preparing to destroy humanity. We’ve all heard ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ And we’ve seen ‘bug’ fixes by the millions.
A Real (or Fabricated) Risk Can Be Used to Create Panic
AI can be misused - like any tool - for fraud, surveillance, censorship, cyberattacks, weapons, political manipulation, and careless automated decisions. An AI agent connected to email, bank accounts, computer networks, laboratories, or weapons could cause real damage.
But there is an enormous difference between addressing those risks and claiming that AI will soon become an all-powerful creature that wipes out the human race.
Extinction predictions are used as weapons. They often depend on assumptions about future systems or possibilities that do not exist. Meanwhile, practical dangers involving people, companies, governments, criminals, and foreign adversaries are facts in the here and now.
Fear can blur that distinction. If people can be scared into believing the end of the world is near, almost any proposed restriction or solution can sound reasonable.
Why Did the Alarm Become So Loud Now?
Concerns about AI have circulated for years. Yet shortly before the midterm election, legislation, corporate warnings, advocacy campaigns, international-governance proposals, and political messaging suddenly converged.
Victor Davis Hanson has raised a fair question: Why now?
Timing alone does not prove coordination. It could reflect new evidence or simply political expediency. But voters should examine the timing instead of ignoring it.
We must also ask who benefits.
Why would companies that invested billions of dollars to build advanced AI suddenly ask government to slow or regulate the industry? If they believe their systems could destroy humanity, why do they keep developing and selling them? If they truly cannot control their own work, why should those same companies help write the rules for everyone else?
Large companies can afford costly licenses, approved evaluators, lawyers, reporting requirements, and long government reviews. Smaller competitors and open-source developers may not. A rule advertised as “safety” can also become a wall protecting today’s market leaders. (Self-interest, anyone? Marketing strategy?)
The funding connections deserve sunlight too. The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism openly says that most of its 2025 funding came from Coefficient Giving. Coefficient’s main funders include Dustin Moskovitz, who participated in Anthropic’s first major investment round. Tarbell says its donors have no editorial control, and we should include that fact. The connection does not prove a conspiracy or dishonest reporting. It does show why funding disclosures and independent fact-checking matter.
Guardrails Without Gatekeepers
The answer is neither panic nor blind trust.
Identifiable harms and high-risk uses should be targeted, yes. Existing laws against fraud, theft, discrimination, hacking, threats, and illegal surveillance should be enforced. Companies should remain responsible when their products cause foreseeable harm. AI agents given access to powerful tools should face strong security requirements, testing, records, and human supervision.
Government must also prevent large companies from writing rules that lock out competitors and entrench their own power.
AI should neither govern humanity nor become an excuse for government to control innovation, speech, or political thought. We should regulate harmful conduct and consequential uses—not hand a few corporations or an international authority control over the entire technology.
Before accepting an AI “emergency,” ask five questions:
What happened—and what was only predicted?
Who is asking for new power?
Who wrote the proposed rules?
Who benefits, and who gets locked out?
Who remains responsible when something goes wrong?
Ask lawmakers and candidates those questions. Read beyond the headline. Follow the money, examine the remedy, and vote with American innovation, freedom, competition, and accountability in mind.
The answer to AI risk is responsible human control—not control of the public through fear.
Above all, humans—nothing else—must remain responsible.
Sources:
Ellen Leyrer, “When AI Becomes the Watchman”
https://www.rationalamerican.org/p/when-ai-becomes-the-watchmanJeff Childers, “Black Boxes,” Coffee & COVID, May 23, 2025
Victor Davis Hanson, “AI and the Same Old Politicized Hysteria,” The Daily Signal, September 27, 2026
https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/09/27/ai-same-old-politicized-hysteria/Colin Redemer, “The AI Capitalists in Search of Cronies,” The American Mind, September 21, 2026
https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-ai-capitalists-in-search-of-cronies/Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, Ethics and Standards
https://www.tarbellcenter.org/ethics-and-standardsAnthropic, 2021 Series A announcement
https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-raises-124-million-to-build-more-reliable-general-ai-systems
As always, do your own research and make up your own mind.
White paper on land and water rights: Property Rights and Freedom: A White Paper on America’s Disappearing Land (8/13/2025)
United we stand. Divided we fall. We must not let America fall.
VoteTexas.gov, https://www.votetexas.gov/get-involved/index.html
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