Here are my main takeaways from our conversation:

• Disinformation is intentional (e.g. political influence campaigns) while misinformation is false information, but without any intention of harm.

• Disinformation is “lawful, but awful”, whereas hate speech is illegal in many countries. Each jurisdiction has a different threshold and understanding of what constitutes illegal speech (yet social media’s moderation policies are typically based on the American standard).

• Literacy campaigns and education is the best way for a society to absorb disinformation. In Finland and Estonia, children are taught about disinformation from a young age to mitigate the impacts of Russian propaganda campaigns.

• Humans have always lied and spread false information, but social media and AI exacerbate the issues. Laws cannot regulate ‘the truthfulness’ of what people say online or in private messages. What they can do is regulating how information is distributed. For example, Brazil adopted a law that said messaging apps such as WhatsApp had to be designed in such a way that you cannot share the same message with more than three people during elections.

• The law should address technology on the level of its design, contrary to regulating its impacts which are many and often unknown.

• The role of social media platforms is not to screen what is true and what is important. The role of social media is to provide users with the right tools, so they can easily screen relevant information for themselves. Currently, social media platforms are intentionally making it hard to do so, because they want to increase engagement as much as possible.

• Social media platforms should be transparent about deepfakes and who sponsors political advertisement ( requirements under EU law).

• As of now, social media is best used for stupid things, not as a reliable source of news.

The US gamified capitalism after the end of WW2. Usually, there are winners and losers in games. The problem with gamifying life itself is that there is no restart button, no way to admit defeat and start over because the game keeps on rolling. As a result, those who win continue to win as their edge grows larger, while those who lose have a diminishing chance of winning with each passing year.

Capitalism is now at a stage where the ever-thinning share of early winners has monstrous wealth and resources at their disposal, while the vast population are competing for the remaining scraps. The best shot young people have of making it today without inheriting wealth is no longer to take a long education and work hard like their parents did. As AI becomes sufficiently good to take care of most entry-level tasks, the chances of achieving a life with material abundance may be higher through gambling, online prostitution, or trying to catch people’s attention for a few minutes by amusing them. In other words, society’s structure is moving back to the dark medieval times, where society is ruled by a few overlords, and the most viable way for a peasant to earn a comfortable income is by becoming a gambler, a whore, or a jester.

The name of this system America has created is Techlordism. Another fitting term for the age we live in is the Dark Enlightenment. Techlordism is actively working to undermine the democratic ideals shaped by philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment. Above all, it dispels the idea that the ‘truth’ can be discovered through observations and reasoning. Rather ‘the truth’ is constructed through power and influence. With enough status and reach, you can successfully claim that the earth is flat and that the 2020 election was stolen, because you will reach a much larger audience and convince more people with statements that defy science and political realities, than you could ever do with facts.

The mission of Techlordism is to control humans through technology. More could be said about how it works (see my ebook) and how horrible it is, but after all, complaining about the problems is not going to solve them.

What can we actually do?

There is good news and bad news on this front. The good news is that we have the political tools and legal instruments available to limit and dismantle Techlordism. The bad news is that our politicians and institutions prefer to look the other way, because they benefit too much from status quo and are afraid of taking the radical measures that are needed. Democracy is corrupted by the spell of Techlordism and we can’t count on the public sector to save us.

So, how can we actually fight back?

Realistically, there is not much we can do as individuals. Defeating Techlordism means changing the rules of the game, how the system works, how we define success in life and what it means to be a human. It will require a massive collective awakening and conscious efforts. Whether or not it will ever happen is beyond our control.

However, I believe it’s possible to participate in the system while distancing ourselves from it; without subscribing to its underlying values. For example, instead of striving for a beachfront house and a lambo, we could be genuinely content with a regular car or a bicycle and a roof over our heads. Instead of planning a vacation to Bahamas every other year, we can just go out in nature. Instead of spending hours scrolling on TikTok, swiping Tinder, hunting digital dopamine hits from strangers and confiding in AI chatbots, we could do something useful such as cleaning, reading a book or engaging in local community activities.

I know this is a hard sell, especially for young people who are brainwashed into thinking that social popularity and material wealth is the ultimate metric of success in life. The answers we are looking for are not motivating or exciting, but right there in front of us.

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Introduction

The battle for global leadership in AI is often framed as a competition about the raw capabilities of models. The US is a clear winner, because no other country has the ability or willingness to throw as much venture capital and public funding behind datacenters and expensive training runs.

I will argue that governance is even more important …

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This is a joint post written by me and . In the first part, I will share my candid thoughts about the legal and geopolitical implications of Claude Mythos. In the second part, Aysu will lay out her personal thoughts about Mythos as a Sustainability Business Development Consultant and AI Enthusiast.

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When I was a young law student, I was once approached by a homeless immigrant outside of the law faculty in Copenhagen, who begged me for a cigarette. He told me that he used to be a promising young scientist with a Ph.D. degree in physics from a fancy European university. Now, he was forced to sleep on a cardboard box and had “no pride”. Even though I don’t remember much of the exact exchange – and of course, he could be lying - the impression I walked away with was that anyone could end up in his shoes.

I am indeed worried that many young people with talent today will. A new Gallup survey shows that the percentage of respondents between age 14 and 29 who said they felt hopeful about AI had declined from 27% last year to 18% as of February and March. Also, “48 % of working Gen Zers believe the risks of AI in the workforce outweigh its benefits”. No way that a new consumer/work technology has ever generated so little excitement and so much concern among those who are supposed to be its main adopters. Is AI having a “PR crisis” or is there something else going on?

Besides AI’s potential to absorb middle class jobs, the vulnerable, global supply chain it relies upon, and the extreme amount of resources that goes into creating cutting-edge models, the competition for entry-level jobs is fierce. I know from experience that companies tend to treat candidates like a bunch of data points, while they expect perfect credentials and love letters in return.

Increasingly, bosses are convinced that AI is a worker-replacement technology, thanks to billionaire influencers like Sam Altman, whose shameless self-promotion entice investors, board rooms and executives the world over. Some people have no pride and sleep on cardboard boxes; other people have no shame and become billionaires.

In 2019, OpenAI was a non-profit organization that refused to launch GPT-2 to the wider public due to fears about how it could be misused. Needless to say, GPT-2 is a laughably primitive model by today’s standards. How much have things changed!

In the paid section below, I will comment on OpenAI’s document, Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First.

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Justin co-wrote the paper, AI Won’t Automatically Make Legal Services Cheaper with Sayash Kapoor, and Arvind Narayanan and has surveyed lawyers about their experience using AI tools for .

We discuss how AI is already changing the work of lawyers and what the legal profession may look like in the short-term future.

A topic of major importance to society!

What do you think? Join the conversation in the comments.

From the archive:

I have to get something off my chest which will hopefully clear up a common misconception about how regulation affects tech innovation in the EU. Let me just say, I don’t think those voices who claim that regulation is an insurmountable barrier to start a successful tech company in Europe are authentic. The narrative is driven by lies and propaganda, most likely stemming from Russian troll farms.

However, to those people who genuinely claim that EU laws are so annoying that’s it’s impossible or nearly impossible to start a successful AI or tech business here, my advice is straightforward: quit your whining and leave. I bet you won’t make it anywhere. The defining trait of successful entrepreneurs is their ability to overcome obstacles. If the legal barriers are such a burden in Europe, you probably don’t have what it takes to be successful no matter where you are located. We need serious and dedicated talent in Europe to ensure our survival, including of the ideas the EU stands for, and our future competitiveness. If you spend a lot of time complaining that bureaucrats in Bruxelles are holding you back and ruining your one shot at success, you probably don’t have what it takes. I say that as someone who helps companies comply with EU laws for a living.

Now, let’s move on to discuss AI. AI will likely be more successful as a military technology, than as a consumer product. The way that AI is reshaping the military is simply more consequential than its ability to generate ‘workslop’, propaganda for social media and to support or replace white-collar professionals. Yes, the military application of AI is to surveil and kill people. Not something I condone, but that is the reality we live in. It’s an utmost priority for Europe to prepare for modern AI-driven warfare as we are facing threats from within, the East, and the West (and many other angles we won’t go further into here).

The threat from within is primarily those with a defeatist attitude who refuse to stand up for European values, and are parroting the anti-democratic rhetoric from their feeds on X and TikTok. Russia is threatening Europe’s territory from the East. The US is increasingly threatening Europe’s territory from the West. A few years ago, a war between the US and the EU was unthinkable. Now, it’s a real, albeit remote, possibility that the EU needs to seriously prepare for. A war with the US may not necessarily be fought out with bombs and boots on the ground, although there is a non-zero chance it could be. More likely, it will be a continuation of the information warfare and economic warfare which is already ongoing. This means that EU countries must become independent of US tech for national security purposes, while rapidly building up sovereign capacities in military AI.

In the paid section of today’s post, we shall see how the EU is preparing for AI-driven war.

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To be honest, it’s a depressing time to advocate for digital ethics and law enforcement on the internet. These things barely register with most people, and understandably so. Considering the persistent hype about AI’s capabilities and the level of economic strain and chaos the Trump administration is introducing to the wor…

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I propose a new term to describe recommender systems on digital platforms, “American algorithms”.

Besides the fact that nearly all digital platforms we use in the West are owned and managed by American companies, they are primarily designed to serve the interest of MAGA America which is to destroy civil society and replace it with a technocracy governed …

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This is the second part of a longer post about AI risks and the EU’s AI strategy. Read the first part here.

In this part, I argue why the EU must address the risks of AI foundation models before speeding recklessly ahead. Instead of replicating Big Tech’s “move fast and break things”-approach, the EU should promote open(-source) foundation models, only trained on public and licensed data, encourage people and institutions to treat AI technology with common sense, not as a magic panacea, while also minding the broader financial and environmental risks. That is how the EU becomes an “AI continent”.

The final version of this draft will be available in Handbook on Regulating Big Technology in the Era of Sustainability by Edward Elgar Publishing.

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The Western millennial generation was raised with an American pop culture that elevated individualism, consumerism, and encouraged young people to live in a self-absorbed way. We were subliminally and overtly told it was “me, myself, and I” against the world and that ego-gratification was the highest ideal in existence.

This self-centered culture was brought about in a time of relative peace and stability. The US won the cold war, distributed Western culture via channels such as Hollywood movies, MTV, and the first internet companies, and took charge of world politics with its “peace through strength” dogma. Under these circumstances, Western millennials could live in a fantasy world where we thought our personal satisfaction mattered more than anything else.

This time of relative peace and stability wouldn’t last. Peace and prosperity is not a new norm; it was a brief footnote, an anomaly in the otherwise violent track record of human beings. Western civilization is no longer in a peacetime. We are back to normal; a new time of upheaval and great suffering, too great to distract from, marked by idiotic wars, significant loneliness, mental health disorders, and palpable risks of economic collapse, climate disasters, and a new deadly pandemic.

Beyond imminent, catastrophic risks, young people are struggling to find jobs, relationships, and housing. Nothing indicates it will change soon as the boomer generation (Trump’s age and older) refuses to share its wealth and wants to live forever. Old people are not just overly represented in wealth statistics, but in politics too. Their stubbornness and antiquated worldviews may explain why we still resolve conflicts with war, sustained by the lives of young men as raw material if necessary, and insist on generating energy with coal and crude oil even though science shows the excessive consumption undermines the conditions for life on earth.

The whole secure and seemingly unbreakable infrastructure which allowed millennials like me to live comfortably and carefree is now shaking beneath our feet. This means that ignorance and complete self-absorption are not luxuries young people in today’s world can afford. To survive in this time of upheaval, younger generations need to cultivate the same qualities American pop culture tried to destroy when I was growing up.

To succeed, Generation Z and Generation Alpha will need to be knowledgeable about how the world works, possess the ability to concentrate, think independently, critically, and long-term. They will also need moral clarity, ideological conviction, discipline, courage, self-sacrifice, community-mindedness, and love for humankind regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, political and religious beliefs. The exact opposite of those personality traits displayed by modern American folk heroes such as Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

An in-field report by Sam Kriss reveals that young tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are taught to cultivate “high-agency”. Allegedly, this is the most important personality trait in the age of AI. Those who don’t possess it are at risk of becoming part of the permanent underclass when the great “bifurcation event” happens which will separate those skilled with AI from those who are rendered useless.

I agree that agency is important, but without knowledge, moral principles and clear direction, it’s a dangerous quality to have. Evidently, assertiveness without a moral standpoint creates shitty people, harmful products and ultimately, at a large enough scale, threatens the survival of our species.

To cultivate agency in a meaningful sense of the word here are some simple, practical tips that will prepare new generations for a dignified life in the tumultuous, confusing, and dangerous time ahead: limit exposure to social media as much as possible, practice digital minimalism and switch from using commercial LLMs to local LLMs.

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So starts a recorded lecture by Jiang Xueqin given to high school students in Beijing. I think of Xueqin as China’s Jordan Peterson.

Xueqin teaches “secret history”, geopolitical strategy, and how to use game theory to make probable predictions about future events (Predictive History on Substack). He has recently achieved a meteoric rise of fame on social media, among other things for predicting in a lecture from May 2024 that 1) Trump would be re-elected, 2) go to war with Iran, and 3) lose the war against Iran with catastrophic consequences (link).

Xueqin’s lectures on YouTube and Substack posts are sweet candyfloss to the ears of conspiracy theorists and doomers. His claims should be consumed with a pinch of salt and a healthy dose of skepticism. There is a razor-thin edge between genius and insanity. Too much light is blinding; too much truth is maddening. Maddening and depressive as it is, Xueqin has an extraordinary and enviable ability to connect dots and poke at a deeper level of truth beneath the noise, even if his viewpoints are dystopian and sometimes deeply controversial.

When reading the daily stream of news, the only logical conclusion to draw must be that we are living through the end times of the Pax American world order. Those who were supposed to prevent this from happening are too busy humblebragging and virtue-signaling on LinkedIn or getting high on American endorphin on X. How will the war in Iran affect the US economy and the tech billionaires’ human-replacement-and-surveillance project, also known as AI? It will meet hard physical constraints and the stakes are extremely high.

My bold prediction for 2026 is that this year will not be “the year of the AI agent” – something boosters have predicted each year since 2023. Instead, the AI bubble pops. If not this year, then in 2027. Sooner or later, it is bound to happen, not gradually, but suddenly and violently. This shock will give tech billionaires and average Trump voters alike a much-needed reality check, and vindicate tech ethicists like myself. The hype and expectations surrounding AI are simply not sustainable, and neither are the energy demands and environmental strains. If my prediction holds true, I don’t expect the same level of online fame as Xueqin, but some credit must be due.

Anyways, onto the positive news of today’s post. The EU Parliament has very sensibly voted to protect copyrighted work and its creative sector in the age of AI. A new opinion piece in the award-winning publication AdExchanger admits that the targeted advertisement industry has made some serious mistakes. A new survey of privacy practitioners in the EU shows what kind of measures that could be adopted to revise the GDPR in a meaningful way (contrary to the Digital Omnibus proposal). Meta currently faces a lawsuit in California and an investigation in the UK after a Swedish newspaper exposed creepy privacy violations related to its AI smart glasses. Last, but not least, it looks like the controversial chat control proposal is finally approaching its grave.

To get full access to my Briefs and read the second part of my post “How the EU Should Approach AI” when it’s published next Tuesday, consider supporting my work with a paid subscription.

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OpenAI is back on top of leaderboards with its latest model, GPT-5.4. Did you notice?

The model signifies another round of impressive, yet relatively incre…

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This is the first part of a long and detailed post about AI risks and the EU’s AI strategy.

I argue why the EU should not follow in the footsteps of the US. European culture cannot embrace the “move fast and break things”-attitude which made OpenAI the world’s second-most valuable startup (second to SpaceX).

The EU should not race towards building “superintelligent” AI systems, but stand by its founding values, and formulate an independent vision of the technology with measurable goals and targets.

The final version of this draft will be available in Handbook on Regulating Big Technology in the Era of Sustainability by Edward Elgar Publishing.

(Part 2 is here)

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The short story is: things are not looking good.

The inability to effectively curb monopolies is a symptom of failed democracy.

In European countries there is a tendency to blame Trump and Big Tech for many problems (I am guilty of this).

In reality, the EU may only be a few years behind on the authoritarian trajectory. In spite of all the high-minded intentions and talks about digital sovereignty, there is too much bureaucracy, too much inaction, excuses, and a pronounced unwillingness to deal with problems head-on.

What kind of risks and harms are Big Tech posing to societies? Why are the EU and the US not able to enforce their laws against these companies? And what can be done?

If these questions interest you, please listen along.

The great Danish storyteller H.C. Andersen wrote fairytales for children in the 19^th century.

If I had more time, I would write a contemporary fairytale in the style of H.C. Andersen, called “The Toxic Toupee on Adventures”. Here is the storyline.

A toupee is possessed by an ancient curse. It travels restlessly around in search of a human body to infest. Its ultimate goal is to turn society into a Kingdom ruled by a rich elite. Whenever the toxic toupee jumps up onto the head of a human, it overtakes their mind and spirit like a zombie parasite. Whoever wears it feels a strong urge to put on a suit and tie, adopt Trump’s mannerism, rhetoric, and imagination abilities, and gradually turn more orange in the face each time they lie like Pinocchio’s growing nose. Because the curse is not bound to a human form, it cannot easily die or be killed. The only way to defeat it is if enough people recognize the curse for what it is, and society is structurally changed to prevent it from obtaining power.

The Toxic Toupee would be written as a bedtime story for children, but the adult who reads it aloud will easily catch the subliminal message. The story is really about the authoritarian takeover project. The moral is, when Trump dies, the driving force behind this project will live on. The mission is to further the gap between rich and poor, control people’s thoughts by taking hold of the information ecosystem, and destroy national and foreign communities by sowing hatred, distrust, and division which distract people from the power grab from above.

Another key aspect of the authoritarian project is to co-opt innovation in the private sector, and ultimately decide what gets made by whom to extend centralized control, stay on top of the political narrative, and squash dissent before it arises. Arguing with or making any demands against the government is a strict breach of protocol, explaining why Anthropic was very publicly designated a “supply chain risk” by the Department of War for failing to accept the government’s terms of service which included a demand for unrestricted access to their technology.

Trump is not the initiator or the leader of the authoritarian project in the US; he is merely an agent of it. Certain conditions in the American society have allowed the authoritarian project to move forward. Of course, I am in no position to exhaustively identify and analyze what exactly has gone wrong– a lot of it is based on national culture, history, past political priorities and decisions that I don’t have insights into. However, as a European, I have noticed three specific and distinct flavors of American society which have greatly contributed to the authoritarian progression:

• Information asymmetry, namely between tech billionaires and the rest of the population

• The politicization of everything

• The blurring line between reality and science fiction

In the paid segment below, we will take a deeper look at each of these conditions based on recent news and viral stories in tech.

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C. Thi Nguyen & Bekka Williams offer an expansive definition of the term “porn” in their paper, “Moral Outrage Porn”:

“a representation is used as generic porn when it is engaged with for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual …

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Back in the good old days, technology served human culture. Mediums such as VHS tapes, CDs, discmans, radios, televisions and computers enabled us to enjoy, experience, and more deeply engage with culture. Ever since American tech giants made the public web synonymous with social media and algorithmic recommendations, this dynamic fl…

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Introduction

The main story of this installment of Tech Legal Brief concerns a very serious topic: fascism.

In the paid segment of this post, we ask how to effectively fight fascism, look at a video which explains how the Russian military manages to infiltrate and attack the US from the inside out, a new study that shows the political effects of X’s recommendation algorithm, and a new proposal for a law in Wyoming which seeks to sanction foreign censorship (h/t ).

All these stories are closely tied to the themes of my recently published ebook “Death To Algorithms: On the entertainment and matchmaking engines that rule our lives” which can be purchased via this Gumroad page.

Beware of Fascist Tendencies

“European censorship” is one of those issues you often hear Trump admins and MAGA Americans complain about. It’s typically accompanied by a bundle of other beliefs which we could call the “MAGA starter pack”.

The US is undergoing an invasion of illegal immigrants, because the Democrats want them as voters. X is a safe haven for free speech warriors. If parents are not careful, democrats may force sex change operations on their children on any given school day. A cult of rich elites is secretly running an international pedophile ring (oops that one checks out). I compiled a video of beliefs from the MAGA starter pack with clips from a recent episode of the Joe Rogan podcast with Elon Musk.

But this is only scratching the surface.

What makes MAGA-American beliefs so dangerous is that they can’t be disputed with rational arguments, facts, or evidence to the contrary. The MAGA starter pack is rooted in a desire to take back control from an overly bureaucratic and unfair system. The beliefs are really only strawman arguments to justify this desire. When MAGA Americans such as Elon are making political arguments, they are doing so in bad faith, thus playing a different game than ordinary politicians in modern times. They use language with the purpose of reaching a specific aim. Therefore, logical holes in their argumentation or lack of factual evidence are not problems to them. The term we use to describe this kind of language use is: propaganda.

Propaganda is the language of fascism. It consists of slogans and simple solutions to complex problems that a majority of people or a powerful minority agree on. The first page of fascism playbook is: create unity among people by finding a common enemy to blame for the country’s hardships.

In Nazi Germany the enemy was jews. In MAGA America the enemy is – luckily – more diffuse. The various factions of the MAGA coalition have not managed to settle on a single, common target. To some it’s illegal democrats, to others it’s all non-white people, to others it’s trans or LGBTQ+ people, to others again it’s the working class, feminists, climate activists, the homeless, or foreign censors.

Trump is obviously a showman, a clown who invites laughter, while the coalition behind him is a fascinating mix of cruel and callous personalities with different agendas. We should all be very aware of the fascist tendencies that are taking root in the US, and partly in Europe. Even though some of us can denigrate Trump and MAGA’s chaos with laughter and schadenfreude for now, it may not last very long. History teaches us that we are perhaps only seeing the beginning, a temporary movement that could evolve with time into a darker, more potent, and less fragmented force of evil. This force could be boosted by socioeconomic inequality, social media as a propaganda tool, and AI as a privacy-eroding tool that discourages dissent. 1984 went from a dystopian novel to a gameplan.

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I would describe my time in law school as a competition between students to achieve certain symbols on a certificate which could translate to an attractive student position which could translate to a prosperous career. Not everyone played this game, but many students did. Treating legal education as a means to an end is a dehumanizing way to think about…

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