The paths of war, artificial intelligence (AI) and capital are intertwined. Major Western financial and energy corporations announce record profits achieved with AI in the context of the invasion of Ukraine.
It is hard to ignore, for example, that on Thursday the Anglo-Dutch company Shell published an unprecedented profit of 9.6 billion dollars in the first quarter of this year, coinciding with the visit of Volodymyr Zelensky to The Hague, where he asked an international court to try the crimes of his rival Vladimir Putin. A coincidence, no doubt, but very illustrative of the forces that shape the present.
That money rules over all things is an obvious fact that we tend to forget when we wonder about the great challenges of humanity. Look, for example, at the Apocalypse that is announced with AI, a technology capable, some say, of replacing man.
It seems, however, that thinking machines can only compute and accumulate data. This is the most primitive form of knowledge. They serve to reduce production costs, but not to advance knowledge. His mechanical thinking learns from the past, from the data collected, but it is incapable of engendering a new world, of thinking what does not exist. That's why there are philosophers, like Byung-Chul Han, who are very calm. They say that human thinking goes far beyond calculation and problem solving. Through passion and doubt, man illuminates what cannot be seen, everything that remains beyond the horizon.
AI, so cold and shallow, cannot make peace in Ukraine, but it can cut production costs, increase capital's profit, and accelerate inequality to the detriment of middle-class people. If these people live in the eurozone, their purchasing power, which has already fallen by 6.5% in the last two years, will not recover. At the end of 2024 it will still be 6% below the level it had in 2020.
With less purchasing power, these citizens will need more social assistance. How will they be paid for, especially now that European governments have skyrocketed military spending? With more taxes and more debt or with renewed austerity? AI still doesn't know how to solve the old butter and guns equation now that security has become a priority. EU countries consider it more urgent than education, health and housing. They believe Russia will remain a threat even if it loses Ukraine.
AI also does not clarify how the ecological transition will be paid for. To reach neutrality in CO2 emissions, around 200,000 million euros are needed annually until 2050. The peace dividend had to cover this expenditure. Without an identifiable life threat, European states bought butter. Now, however, as Kristalina Georgieva, manager of the IMF, has acknowledged, "the peace dividend has disappeared". Macron calculates that France will have a "war economy" for many years. The welfare state will suffer. Public officials in the middle of Europe, teachers, lawyers and health workers, are already planning strikes and mobilizations. They feel underpaid, even if the AI says otherwise.
European governments will have to make budget decisions that will affect the daily lives of citizens and the most radical politicians will take advantage of this to pour their populist rhetoric on the wounded body of the middle class.
The situation is also difficult in many low-income countries. Debt suffocates them. Inflation in the US hits them hard. When the Federal Reserve makes money more expensive to curb rising prices, they also increase the interest on their dollar-denominated debt. AI can help them recalculate how much they owe, but only Joe Biden and Xi Jinping can ease the burden of debt they carry.
Another example that AI does not understand the connection between two such basic human activities as war and work is Brazil. Its neutrality in the Ukraine conflict is explained by the fact that China is the main customer of its minerals and agricultural products. China buys 30% of Brazilian exports, more than any other country. China is also Brazil's main supplier. This commercial relationship intensifies year by year. That's why Lula, without the help of AI, declares himself neutral and applauds Xi's diplomatic mediation. It is the smartest thing you can do to preserve employment in Brazil.
Wars tend to be about the appropriation of foreign means of production. Also that of Ukraine, where Russia is ambitious for its industrial and natural wealth. The AI knows it. He also knows that the invaders design their military strategies and recruit their armies on greed and cynicism, with empty epics and values, but these are characteristics so human and imperfect that the machines may never adopt them.
Machines can work as generals and entrepreneurs, they can accumulate death and wealth for their owners, but they do not have the passion of the suicide or the naivety of the explorer. It is a consolation that neither Putin nor Einstein can be.
AI doesn't save us from the horror of Ukraine or pay our bills, and that's a limitation we should keep. It confirms to us that the future, even if it is complicated, is still in our hands.
