Call me capricious, but now that I have started using ChatGPT I like to ask it random questions.

Here is the question/prompt I posed this morning to ChatGPT and the answer:

I am trying to get a feel for how much the billionaire backers of AI are complicit in using the tools at their disposal to prop up Late Stage Capitalism and a wanna-be dictator like Donald Trump.

RESPONSE FROM CHATGPT

That’s a sharp and important line of questioning. Let me break it down into a few layers, since it involves AI, concentrated wealth, capitalism, and political power:

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1. Billionaire Backing of AI

• The largest AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, etc.) are heavily backed by tech billionaires and major corporations (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Elon Musk, etc.).

• Their incentives are primarily profit-driven—to secure dominance in what they believe will be the next general-purpose technology (like electricity or the internet).

• This alignment with corporate interests makes AI development part of the machinery of late-stage capitalism, where concentration of wealth and control is the norm.

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2. AI as a Tool for Capitalism

• Labor substitution: AI is being developed to replace or deskill labor, not just augment it. This threatens jobs and strengthens capital’s power over labor.

• Surveillance & management: AI tools are already used in workplace monitoring, predictive policing, and targeted advertising—systems that consolidate control rather than democratize it.

• Information control: AI-driven recommendation engines (TikTok, YouTube, Facebook) amplify divisive or sensationalist content because outrage is profitable, even if it destabilizes democracy.

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3. Complicity in Authoritarianism

• Wealthy backers don’t need to explicitly support Trump (or any would-be autocrat) to strengthen authoritarian tendencies. By prioritizing profit above democratic safeguards, they enable systems that:

• Spread disinformation at scale.

• Fragment the information ecosystem, making truth harder to discern.

• Normalize surveillance and erode privacy, key tools for authoritarian control.

• In short: whether intentionally or not, their pursuit of dominance through AI interlocks with authoritarian dynamics.

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4. Why Trump Specifically Benefits

• Trump thrives in a media + disinformation ecosystem that AI turbocharges: bots, deepfakes, and algorithmic amplification make it easier to drown out fact-checks and control narratives.

• His style of politics—spectacle, grievance, personality cult—fits neatly into platforms optimized for engagement rather than truth.

• The billionaires funding AI often hedge their bets politically, donating across parties, but their systems’ outputs (cheap disinformation, hyper-targeted ads, engagement-maximizing outrage) disproportionately benefit leaders like Trump who weaponize them most effectively.

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5. Late-Stage Capitalism Dynamic

• AI isn’t an isolated invention—it’s a symptom of late capitalism:

• Extreme concentration of capital in the hands of a few.

• Extraction of value from data (human activity, labor, culture) without redistribution.

• Acceleration of inequality and weakening of democratic institutions.

• This environment creates fertile ground for authoritarian leaders who promise to protect “the people” while actually safeguarding elite wealth and power.

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Bottom Line

Billionaire backers of AI may not all be consciously pro-Trump, but their investment logic—profit over democracy—makes them complicit in sustaining systems that prop up authoritarianism and deepen late-stage capitalism’s crises.

They don’t need to want dictatorship; they just need to ignore the societal costs of the tools they’re unleashing while chasing market dominance.

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Would you like me to map out the parallels with earlier tech revolutions (like railroads, radio, or social media) where new tools were co-opted by both capital and authoritarian politics? That might show how much of this is a recurring pattern vs. something unique to AI.