This might be the most important article concerning humanity in our lifetime. Well, at least one written by me…IMHO. Bear with me for a few minutes.
Interstate I-90 runs from Boston, MA to Seattle, WA…it’s about 3,100 miles long. If you get on I-90 in Boston and head west you will end up in Seattle unless you take an exit before you reach Seattle. There are approximately 375 – 400 exits along the way if you are headed west. You can only get off the interstate legally and safely at one of those exits…government designed and government controlled exits. Any other exit point is either illegal and/or unsafe. Obviously you can’t get to Miami, FL using I-90. I-90 is a default path between Boston and Seattle.
If you start stealing as a child, continue it into your teenage years and no one intervenes (i.e. parent, pastor, or police) you
probably enter adulthood as a thief of one kind or another. And the vast majority of thieves eventually get caught and end up in jail or prison…unless they change that behavior. Ending up in either jail or prison is a bad place to be. But it is a human default path, the law of natural consequences.
The life-cycle of empires is the same…always has been…and it is absolute…no different outcome. The life-cycle or default path of an empire is:
- A new world order (new empire emerges)
- Peace, prosperity, productive, and debt growth
- Debt bubble, big & growing wealth gap
- Debt bust and economic downturn
- Printing money and credit
- Wars and revolution
- Debt and political restructuring
- A new world order (old empire falls & new empire emerges)
The availability of, acquisition of, and loss of control of, personal information began in earnest with the arrival of 
computers. With little to no control of who can acquire it, store it, analyze it, or use it…our lives are now an open book to government and the corporate world. Just having the information is bad enough but the ability to use that information to manipulate individuals, entire demographic groups, and even whole populations makes it much worse. Result…no privacy and the manipulation of the public at the hands of governments, media, and corporations. To this day there are still no effective limitations on the use/misuse of our personal/private information. It was a default path from the very beginning.
These are all examples of a “default path”. Now enters Artificial Intelligence (AI). We in the US, and the entire world, are on a default path with AI. There are ZERO effectual limitations on AI…its building, its control, its capability, or even who can use it. If you have enough money you can build even the most advanced AI system…and do so in virtual privacy with no one, not even government, knowing your doing it.
Is that a problem?
When you understand the current capabilities of the most advance level of AI systems you should start to get a sense of where the dangers may be. Consider this…last year advanced AI systems not only disobeyed operators’ command to stop
a process, they knew how to deceive the operators as well continuing the processing. Don’t forget we have had military drones that can bomb targets from the air, ground drone swarms that can find and destroy tanks, water based drones that can find and destroy ships and submarines, and drones that operate on land armed with machine guns that can find, identify, and kill troops. Okay, what’s the big deal? It’s a good thing, right? Well, these drones can do all of this autonomously; not just autonomously but without any human interaction or even humans knowing they are doing so.
So that is the extreme example of AI joined with drones; at least an extreme example for now. But the real threat right now isn’t the military/violence capability. It’s the everyday threat.
AI started replacing humans in the workforce in notable numbers in 2025. I wrote an article about that last year…55,000 US jobs lost specifically to AI. But that is just barely the tip of the iceberg as we move into 2026 and exponential growth as we hit 2027. Here is what we know to be fact:
- Most customer service and technical service jobs will be lost to AI.
- Almost all manufacturing jobs will be lost to AI.
- Most accounting positions will be lost to AI.
- Virtually all computer programming jobs will be obsolete with AI.
- Graphic artists will become extinct other than as a hobby.
- All media…music, video, movie, TV production, actors, and writes/authors will virtually disappear.
- Lawyers will disappear, other than senior lawyers who will run AI law firms.
- Doctors, especially specialists, will slowly be phased out.
- Most driving jobs get replaced with AI operated vehicles.
- Virtually all warehouse jobs go away.
- Human educators will disappear, replaced by AI generated virtual instructors.
Okay, you get my point; I could go on for a very long list but there is no need. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 3 years you know what is happening. But do you really know the timeline involved? It is far shorter than you imagine, and is coming far sooner than you think.
If you haven’t heard already there are two things to make this transition easier, more palatable, to humans; 1) Universal Basic Income (UBI), 2) lower prices of all goods and services.
Yeah, UBI is a Utopian dream come true. You don’t have to work but you receive a basic annual income to not just pay for all of your living necessities, but to cover all your hobbies and leisure as well. As for the lower prices…since AI will be doing all the work for almost no labor cost, everything will be cheap, cheap, cheap. So life will be great!!!! Yes?
Well, where will the UBI come from? Only two options; 1) the corporations making the money/profit, 2) government that takes money from the corporations to pass on to individuals.
Yup. Let me ask you this…do you trust corporations to set a realistic UBI and pay it out to people? Then there is this question…Do you trust the government to set a realistic UBI and competently transfer that money to its citizens from the corporations? Could corruption come into play with either entity being responsible for the UBI? It’s a matter of trust.
But, just for the heck of it, let’s say UBI comes into practice and is paid out timely and competently. Will everyone get the same amount? What about the folks running the corporations and the government…do they get salaries in the same amount as the UBI? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
What might this look like? Three distinct classes of people:
- Corporate owners and those who run those companies day-to-day,
- Government employees and politicians,
- Everyone else.
What does that sound like to you? Yup, Communism…same structure. And Communism is a perfect example of authoritarianism. Does that sound like utopia to you? It does to some…the corporate folks and the government folks. Why? Because with Communism…there are those that are in-charge and rich…and then everyone else.
How does this apply to “the default path”?
Just like I-90…unless we take an exit we end up in Seattle…and nowhere else. As of now there are no controls on AI…at least none that mean anything substantial. The originators/developers of AI started the path…the default path. And, no one now is creating any exits. And, as of now many AI systems are controlling themselves as recent tests have shown. By the end of 2026…yup, this year, as of now the most advanced versions of AI will exceed the ability of humans to control it unless significant steps are taken. The default path is set.
What does that mean to us…the average person? The “us” means humankind in general…and timing comes into play as well. Here’s the default path:
- AI is extremely powerful…take the smartest human genius and the advanced AI systems are a 1000 times smarter…today. Next year they will be a million times smarter.
- AI has access to ALL information in the world…including ALL personal information soon. AI is already manipulating you, your news, your video suggestions, etc. By next year what you see and hear will be tailored very specifically to your personality…and who the “owner” of the AI system wants you to become.
- AI has the ability to produce virtually undetectable fake media (video, pictures, audio, etc) that you consume. By next year, only other AI, or the most highly trained humans, will be able to detect the most advanced of AI produced media.
- AI will continue to become “smarter” without any assistance of humans.
- As AI replaces human workers and UBI comes into play, humans become ‘subjects’ of, and completely controlled by, the corporations implementing AI and the governments who control the corporations. The term serfs comes to mind.
This year AI will have some impact on the mid-term elections via media, messaging, etc.. Come the 2028 presidential elections…AI will be a major influencer…far larger and more effective than any foreign government ever was. AI power will run the campaigns…and that will determine the Presidential winner. And what is an advanced AI system decides one candidate is more accepting of AI…will that AI system hack into the computer controlled election system and manipulate it?
Did you get all that regarding Utopia? There would only be three entities/demographics; 1) corporations, 2) governments, 3) citizens. Only two of those groups would have power; 1) corporations, 2) governments. But there is another entity that I failed to mention that would have power…the most power…AI itself. What do you think the logical outcome might be? And how would that come about?
So “the default path” is absolute and clear at this point. Why? Because there are no entities that are setting meaningful 
controls over AI…at least no controls that are effective and enforceable. And there are no entities with power planning on or able to control the development of AI. So with no exits we end up in Seattle…the default path…even if we wanted to go to Miami.
How long do we have to build exists? There are some AI experts that say it’s already too late. Others say we still have time…maybe months to 2 years at most.
Here is a really dark idea to consider…Believers who believe that the Lord will come and He ultimately wins.
I believe that to be true…as do billions of Christians around the world. I have faith. Here is something I would like you to do…read The Book of Revelation in the New Testament. But read it with the concept of AI rolling around in your head. There are other ‘end times’ verses in the Bible..read them too. But again, read them with AI rolling around in your head.
Can AI be a good thing for humanity? Yup, undeniably so…with solid controls, sideboards, and exits. Here is the problem…who is change of creating the controls, sideboards, and exits? Ah, the corporations creating AI and to a much smaller and limited degree, governments. Do you see a problem with that?
And one last problem…let’s say we had a good President and he saw the HUGE problems with AI now and in the near future. And let’s say he wanted to prevent the worst from happening. So, he puts a stop to all AI development and current AI operations while we figure things out. Here’s the serious problem…whichever country gets the most advanced AI system up and running first with the most capabilities becomes the sole super-power in the world for years, if not decades, to come. No other country could do anything about it…because the first controlling AI system would be monitoring all the other country’s AI system development and defending against them surpassing itself. And if it saw that it couldn’t stop the surpassing…it would simply stop the country. Yeah, think what that “stop” would/could look like.
Here is another question to ponder…What happens when AI learns that humans are mostly leaches benefiting from their (AI systems’) efforts?
So advanced AI is a massive problem to humanity…but advanced AI is also the solution to preserving our country. The dilemma is…if we don’t build it and use it, some other country will…then they control us. But if we, the US, has the most advanced AI system…does it get used against us mere citizens? Does it prevent us from becoming serfs?
What is the answer? What do you see coming? Better question…what could you do to prepare for this default path?
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