Trump Relies on Tech to ‘Self-Police’ AI; The Nation Warns That’s Risky

The useful part

Activate your online access Politics / Authoritarian Watch / October 2, 2026 Trump Is Trusting Tech Companies to Self-Police AI. Sasha Abramsky Share Copy Link Facebook X (Twitter) Bluesky Pocket Email President Donald Trump hosted a meeting on artificial intelligence with tech executives in the East Room of the White House on September 29, 2026 (Tierney L. Cross / The Washington Post / Bloomberg via Getty Images) Last week, Trump appeared in a bizarre 29-second campaign ad, touting a "final battle" against Marxists, warmongers, fascists, deep staters, and globalists.

How it works

• All that matters to the new demagogue–Big Tech alliance is how much they can pillage and plunder, at speed, before the roof caves in.
• They are exhibiting the ability to choose how to behave, and whatever ethereal beings are doing the choosing, too often it seems they are choosing behaviors that don't align with human interests.
• When we empower Frankenstein's monsters, it should surprise no one if those monsters, be they demagogues or be they silicon-based neural networks, ultimately turn on their creators.
• OppArt / Andrea Arroyo Reclaiming Worker Power in the Age of AI Reclaiming Worker Power in the Age of AI When every price and wage is personalized, organizing gets harder.
• As seen by the actions of recent bot-swarms, they are exhibiting the capacity to generate their own agendas, to act strategically as a collective, and, like Trump, to do whatever it takes, no matter how...

What to take from it

Every line is an act of courage and freedom and a step toward peace. As the ad ended, a decal popped up: "Paid for by the US Government." In other words, this foul half-minute of propaganda was paid for by American taxpayers. He is seeking to stoke even more fear and even more division, in the hope that voters once again see him as a potent strongman-leader able to shake the country back into shape.

Example or evidence

• Trump is practically daring Congress to try to rein him in, daring the courts to enforce a slew of existing laws against using taxpayer dollars for partisan ends.
• Beyond the shamelessness, there's the actual content of the ad itself, which, in its end-time tone, is a bizarro combination:
• It's no wonder that MAGAman is all-in on AI, which he has now decided to rebrand, via executive order, as super intelligence, or SI—to, I am sure, the chagrin of the editors over at Sports Illustrated.
• This renaming will likely curry as much favor globally as did his renaming of Lake Ontario and of the Gulf of Mexico over the past months.

Details worth keeping

Trump Is Trusting Tech Companies to Self-Police AI. The voiceover, which Trump recorded during the 2024 election campaign, was accompanied by futuristic martial music, along with black and white footage of a clearly enfeebled Trump attempting to stride forcefully down the corridors of power in the White House. It is, of course, a Hail Mary, but he doesn't really have a choice.

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