AI-tocracy Complete?

I grew up under Enver Hoxha’s totalitarian regime in Albania, where paranoia reigned supreme, propaganda was relentless, dissent was crushed, and concrete bunkers dotted the landscape. Now, as I witness the United States marching toward authoritarianism, I am struck by the haunting echoes of my past. The effort to reshape society through fear, intimidation, and division;the attack on independent institutions;the surveillance state; and the apocalyptic fever remind me so of the dynamics that once suffocated Albania. Beneath it all simmers a pervasive social malaise and a sense of moral decay.

Today’s crisis is not accidental. It’s a long time in the making and the result of powerful interests—Silicon Valley billionaires, MAGA ideologues, Christian nationalists, and Project 2025 architects—who have set aside their differences and coalesced to accelerate collapse, fuel division, and destroy democracy.

AI Regulatory Moratorium

A chief goal of this agenda is the race to build and deregulate artificial intelligence (AI). Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, we’ve been subjected to the largest tech experiment in history. AI evangelists promise miracles—curing intractable diseases, solving climate crisis, even eternal life—while ignoring its insatiable appetite for water and energy, much of it still sourced from fossil fuels. Revealingly, some billionaires who once called for AI regulation now fund efforts to ban states from regulating AI for the next decade.

Tucked in over 1,000 pages of the recent Republican reconciliation bill is a sweeping moratorium which would ban states and municipalities from regulating AI for 10 years. The same bill slashes hundreds of billions from Medicaid, Medicare, and food aid—an unprecedented transfer of wealth upward that will gravely harm both the most vulnerable and the working class—while pouring over a billion dollars into AI development at the Departments of Defense and Commerce.

The real risk is not that the U.S. will lose to China by regulating AI, but that it will lose the trust of its own people and the world by failing to do so.

The impact would be immediate and profound. It would preempt existing state AI laws in California, Colorado, New York, Illinois, and Utah, and block pending state bills aimed at ensuring transparency, preventing discrimination, and protecting individuals and communities from harm. The broad definition of “automated decision systems” would undermine oversight in healthcare, finance, education, consumer protection, housing, employment, civil rights, and even election integrity. In effect, it would rewrite the social contract, stripping states of the power to protect their residents.

The “End Times Fascism” Forces and the “Network State”

Make no mistake—this isn’t an isolated effort. It’s what Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor call “the rise of end times fascism”—an apocalyptic project of convergent factions to accelerate societal collapse and redraw sovereignty for profit. Particularly, the Silicon Valley contingent merits closer scrutiny. Its ultra-libertarian and neo-reactionary wing, including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen has abandoned faith in democracy and invested in Pronomos Capital—a venture capital fund backing “network states” that can best be described as digital fiefdoms run by corporate monarchs. Existing enclaves include Próspera in Honduras and Itana in Nigeria where the wealthy bypass local regulation and often displace communities. Now, billionaires lobby for “Freedom Cities” within the U.S.—autonomous zones exempt from state and federal law, potentially enabling unregulated genetic experimentation and other risky activities.

Silicon Valley’s Ideologies

Animating this project is a bundle of techno-utopian ideologies permeating Silicon Valley’s zeitgeist—most prominently, longtermism and transhumanism. Longtermists believe our duty is to maximize the well-being of hypothetical future humans, even at today’s expense. These worldviews envision replacing humanity with AI or digital posthuman species as inevitable, even desirable. Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, who publicly warn of AI extinction, stand to benefit by positioning their products as humanity’s salvation. As philosopher Émile P. Torres warns, these ideologies spring from the same poisoned well as eugenics and provide cover for dismantling democratic safeguards and social protections in pursuit of a pro-extinctionist future.

DOGE

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) exemplifies the risks. Operating as an unelected, extra legal entity, it has employed AI-driven systems to automate mass firings of federal employees, and deployed Musk’s X AI Grok chatbot to analyze sensitive government data, potentially turning millions of Americans’ personal information into training fodder for the model. Reports indicate DOGE is building a data panopticon pooling the personal information of millions of Americans to surveil immigrants and to aid the Department of Justice in investigating spurious claims of widespread voter fraud.

AI Harms and the Threat of Mass Unemployment

The perils of unregulated AI are not theoretical. Like any powerful technology, AI has enormous potential for both benefit and harm, depending on how it is developed, deployed, and regulated. Embedded within AI systems are the biases and assumptions of the training data and algorithmic choices, which—if left unchecked—can perpetuate and amplify existing social disparities at scale. AI is not merely a technical tool. Rather, it is part of a larger sociotechnical system, deeply intertwined with human institutions, infrastructure, laws, and social norms.

The states must “flip the script,” drawing on the strength of our democratic tradition and shared humanity, to build a future where people and not the “end times fascism” forces can flourish.

Documented AI harms include wrongful denial of health services;discrimination in housing, hiring, and lending; and the spread of misinformation and deepfakes, among others. Where Congress has failed to act, states have stepped in to fill the regulatory void. If they are now prevented from addressing these harms, without a federal framework to take their place, the consequences will likely be severe. Not only will known harms worsen, but new risks will emerge, including the specter of mass unemployment. Some tech CEOs, anxious on making good on their massive AI investments, boast about automating away people’s jobs and another warns of mass job losses, regardless of whether AI is up to the job.

The Purported China Threat

Supporters of the moratorium claim that state-level regulation impedes America’s ability to compete with China. But flooding the market with unregulated, potentially harmful AI risks eroding public trust and creating instability. Contrary to the perennial argument propounded by Big Tech, targeted regulation does not slow innovation. Rather, it creates the stability, predictability, and safety that allow American companies to thrive and lead globally. The real risk is not that the U.S. will lose to China by regulating AI, but that it will lose the trust of its own people and the world by failing to do so.

The Public Opinion Is for AI Regulation

The American public is not fooled. Polls show overwhelming bipartisan support for strong AI oversight. State attorneys general and civil society groups have also opposed the moratorium. In the Senate, the provision may face challenges under the Byrd Rule, which prohibits including provisions in budget reconciliation bills that are “extraneous” to fiscal policy. If enacted, the moratorium would likely be challenged as unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment, which reserves to the states all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government. Regardless of its fate, the intent of its supporters is clear: to harness AI without guardrails, in pursuit of a monarchical dystopian agenda.

The Way Forward

Americans do not aspire to a future of despotic power and unaccountable surveillance—akin to the unfreedom I experienced in communist Albania. We know where that road leads: oppression, corruption, mass brainwashing, and eventually the breakdown of social order. But America’s story isn’t written by those who surrender to fear, fatalism, or nihilism. As James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Now is the time to face this challenge together. The states must “flip the script,” drawing on the strength of our democratic tradition and shared humanity, to build a future where people and not the “end times fascism” forces can flourish. Let us answer this moment not with resignation, but with courage and resolve, and ensure that a “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”