AI Endgame: AI Oligarchs are Getting Plenty of Bang for Their Big Bucks

Newsletter #21

Feb 13, 2025

https://debbiecoffey.substack.com/p/ai-endgame-ai-oligarchs-are-getting

February 13, 2025

by Debbie Coffey, AI Endgame

For the past few weeks, I’ve been advising a non-profit organization on their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Now I’m planning to “catch up” on the latest AI news in my AI Endgame newsletters. And I get it, my attention was elsewhere for a few weeks, and I’m already buried in all the changes in the AI industry. OpenAI released their new reasoning model o3-mini (pushing us closer to AI superintelligence); a Chinese startup released DeepSeek (hiring talent from a Microsoft AI research lab in China); Saudi Arabia is investing almost $15 billion to become a global leader in AI; and Vice President Vance railed against the regulation of AI at an AI Summit in Paris. It’s a free-for-all. I keep hearing people say, “So much is happening so fast, that it’s hard to keep up.”

I heard this loud and clear when I took a moment to listen to a webinar with representatives of Public Citizen, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), WIRED magazine, and the Free Press, titled “Into the Breach: Exposing Musk’s Illegal Assault on the Privacy Rights of All Americans.”

Privacy rights are extremely important, but they may be the least of our worries.

I’ve been carefully scrutinizing what Elon Musk is - and more importantly - isn’t doing.

Musk owns companies in many industries, including: X Corp. (X, previously known as Twitter), Neuralink (developing brain implants), xAI, SpaceX, Starlink (the satellites operated by Starlink Services, LLC, a subsidiary of SpaceX), Tesla, and The Boring Company (boring tunnels). Musk was a co-founder of PayPal and OpenAI. Musk is now offering $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI (and its ChatGPT). [1]

One of AI Endgame’s main goals is to inform you of the risks of AI, and to provide you with information regarding AI safety. As a reminder, in AI Endgame newsletter #11, the warnings were clear and dire:

Elon Musk is aware of AI risks and has warned that AI can cause human extinction. [2] Musk estimated a 20% chance of this happening, but his estimate is much lower than the estimates of many other AI experts. (20% is still a very huge risk.)

For example, Roman Yampolskiy, an AI safety researcher and director of the Cyber Security Laboratory at the University of Louisville, estimates the risk of AI causing human extinction is 99.999999%. [3]

Elon Musk also acknowledged that superintelligence (the point where AI will be more intelligent than humans and we could lose control of AI) will likely be reached this year. [4]

I felt hopeful when President Biden issued an Executive Order titled “Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.” This order directed the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop standards for safety testing, and tasked other federal agencies with assessing any potential chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, cybersecurity, or critical infrastructure risks AI might pose.

In AI Endgame newsletter #11, I also voiced concern that President Trump would favor the deregulation of AI development.

I was right.

The “AI Arms Race” is Off and Running

Many countries want to dominate AI technology for national security and economic reasons. AI companies are motivated to be the first to develop AI technologies and dominate the market, because they want to rake in trillions of dollars. The biggest obstacle to strong AI safety regulation is the global AI “arms race.”

The AI oligarchs have been circling the Trump Administration like vultures. Elon Musk donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect President Trump. [5]

January, 23, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) that revoked President Biden’s EO, and along with it, AI safety measures. President Trump’s new Executive Order is titled "Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence." [6]

“Removing barriers” means removing safety regulations. The word “safety” is not mentioned once in President Trump’s EO.

President Trump’s EO states “It is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”

How are we going to flourish if we’re all dead?

President Trump’s EO, along with the emergence of a Chinese AI start-up’s DeepSeek, has put the AI arms race into full-drive.

Wait a sec, Elon Musk knows superintelligent AI could cause human extinction, but he’s fretting about DOGE and sleeping at the DOGE offices in DC? [7] Didn’t Elon Musk warn President Trump about the dangers of AI? Didn’t Musk advise the President to keep the AI safety regulations?

This is another bait and switch. Musk is busy causing distractions by selling President Trump and the public on the evils of overspending and DOGE, while AI’s threats to humanity are looming closer.

With all that I’ve learned about AI, I’m having a hard time sleeping in my own bed because I’m worrying about the Trump Administration throwing out AI safeguards.

What about the other AI oligarchs?

Peter Thiel is a co-founder of Palantir, a data mining and analytics company (now branding itself as a data intelligence company) with many government contracts. Palantir is also developing AI. (More about Palantir in a future newsletter.) Thiel has been mentoring and bankrolling J.D. Vance’s career for years including, along with other Silicon Valley donors, Vance’s bid for the U.S. Senate in 2022. [8]

What did their money and influence buy?

Work it, Baby, Work it

Days ago, at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, Vice President Vance said:

"I'm not here this morning to talk about AI safety, which was the title of the conference a couple of years ago. I'm here to talk about AI opportunity."

“The A.I. future is not going to be won by hand-wringing about safety.” [9]

(What are we going to “win” if we’re all dead?)

“…to restrict its development now … would mean paralyzing one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations."

(In all human history, we’ve never faced the unknowns or the risks of AI superintelligence.)

“…we believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off, and we'll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies, and I'd like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way into a lot of the conversations at this conference." [10]

(I’m not worried that some regulation might “kill” a “transformative industry,” I’m literally worried that superintelligent AI will kill every human on the planet. And is “any” AI safety regulation at all now considered to be “excessive” regulation?”)

"The Trump administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints. America cannot and will not accept that, and we think it's a terrible mistake."

(That’s what they’re troubled about?)

PauseAI warned us that the team behind the 2025 Paris AI Summit decided to remove the word “safety” from their name altogether, and instead, focus on how to “embrace” and “catalyze” the “massive deployment of AI.”

Despite the immense risk and many dire warnings, the doors are now being thrown wide open to welcome the unfettered development of AI. Better to cause human extinction than to consider tightening the screws on big U.S. tech companies.

We’re being played by men who have great wealth and want power. But what do you want for your children and your grandchildren?

When you see imminent danger, your first instinct is to protect your family. Well, your children and grandchildren are about to be hit by an oncoming car if we don’t demand AI safety regulations now. Now is the time to run out and hold up traffic, until we know exactly what is speeding our way and how to keep it on the road.

You’re now facing the catastrophic risks of uncontrollable AI. Please take action. Demand your government representatives fight for AI safety regulations. If you are able, please donate to the organizations that are focusing on AI safety (because Elon Musk probably isn’t giving any of them over a quarter of a billion dollars).

Find links to all past AI Endgame newsletters HERE.

What you can do:

1) Support (and if you can, make donations) to organizations fighting for AI Safety:

Pause AI

https://pauseai.info/

Center for Humane Technology

https://www.humanetech.com/who-we-are

Center for Democracy and Technology

https://cdt.org/

2) Call your representatives and tell them you “want regulations to pause AI now, until strong AI safety laws are enacted.”

Find out how to contact your Congressional representatives here:

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative