Unknown Mexica (Aztec) Artist Cihuateotl (15th–early 16th century)

We stand on the precipice of the greatest discoveries in the history of this world so far. How could it possibly be otherwise, as we stand here with all of human history receding behind us? This might be why every day seems so imperiled right now. With the promise of even modest Prosperity, externalities seem to become more prominent. We see mostly downsides and forget how fraught every prior radical improvement initially seemed. There were always naysayers; they often even dominated whatever discussions surrounded the emerging opportunity. Remember, most Americans were Tories during the Revolution. If people had been able to access their druthers, they would have probably passed up every opportunity to rewrite history, preferring to stay home, however uncomfortable, over dangerous exploring and potentially discovering great good fortune. Prosperity in the past has often come into its futures kicking and screaming bloody murder.

How embarrassing when the future dawns brighter than anyone ever imagined it could be again. Dissent disappears quietly in the face of any undeniable success, but that outcome was never quite as promising as the survivors who benefited from it ever remember. The prospect was genuinely terrifying, not because it was impossible, but because it demanded abandoning the equivalent of a perfectly serviceable cow for a promise held captive in what so obviously seemed the equivalent of a meager handful of what few people really believed were actually as magical as touted beans. The promise seemed more like cheating than anything promising salvation. If people didn’t precisely rise in protest against this promised future, most just voted with their apathetic feet and found reasons to rearrange their sock drawers that morning rather than throw their heartfelt support behind the terrifying forces insistent on inflicting change. The old status quo always seems as though it will become the certain winner in any contest against any future. Only by the grace of the oddest gods still in service does any genuine innovation ever find traction.

And so it has been so far with the presently much-touted Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its associated data centers. Unlike radios and sliced bread before it, AI might represent the perfect foil. First, its definition seems incomprehensible. It genuinely means something different to everyone who encounters it. It sparks the imagination better than a buttload of magic mushrooms. It elicits every sci-fi villain in the history of science fiction villainy, and nobody—neither the most die-hard promoter nor the most passionate protestor—has a real clue what this idol might actually mean. It’s The Blind Men and the Elephant on artificially enhanced steroids. Few comprehend its promise. It consequently features the worst public relations in the sorry history of public relations. Even the founder of modern advertising would have considered this one an unrecoverable disaster, yet here it stands, promising more and better than almost anyone can imagine. We consequently stand, surrounded by competing little Napoleons, in increasingly desperate need of a single unifying Washington, with no clear Washington in sight.

We could chase off the greatest Prosperity this world has ever experienced, but such a deflection wouldn’t last long in the grand sweep of world history. The same, or some very similar, concept will certainly return to bedevil the by-then even more exhausted progeny of those who so successfully deflected their own history from emerging in their time. The arc of history tends to be overwhelmingly insistent, and once we manage to get beyond this brief delusional dabble with authoritarianism, we’ll rediscover the beneficence and necessity of democracy. How else could it possibly be? History might be insistent without necessarily being completely stupid. We have achieved exponential improvement in our lot, only ever increasingly realized during those periods when democracy was ascendant. Notice how measles returned in direct response to our recent dabbling in authoritarianism. History can be obtuse but also cruelly insistent.

AI has already, even though it’s still in its initial infancy (excuse me, that was not nearly as redundant a statement as it might have sounded), been implicated in the greatest expansion of medical treatments in history so far. From pharmaceuticals to treatment protocols, vaccines to surgical procedures, we have already entered a golden age unprecedented in the total of previous human history, and we’re barely into the entryway of what seems likely. The discoveries’ velocities will only accelerate from here, and they’re already emerging at a humblingly dizzying pace. Of course, being Napoleons rather than Washington, both the US and the Chinese are testing their AI models on historically trivial, if terrifying, pursuits, but ones that could produce genuinely grave results. We seem to favor fiddling with security systems, while the Chinese focus on surveillance of their own citizens. Neither pursuit seems likely to lift humanity the way medical research already has. It seems, as always, that great visions tend to encourage introspection rather than actual action. We might just as well re-label AI “Artificial Paranoia” for all the good these beta uses encourage.

The headlines insist that AI could end human existence in less than a decade. This news ignores the fact that we’ve possessed this capability since at least the mid-sixties. It seems whatever future we might choose, or might choose us, involves peril, just as if we play for keeps here rather than the trivials that so often seem on the most prominent display. We worry about our future and fret about our probable legacies, just as we always have. We fortunately no longer have capricious kings able and willing to direct their captive vassals into ruinous and meaningless battles, but we could insist upon engaging in them without waiting for despotic direction. We might choose to essentially bomb ourselves back into some stone age to defend ourselves against such unimaginable Prosperity, and win, or … lose, but only ever temporarily. Even the scariest Prosperity will be more persistent than we could possibly imagine unless our imagination receives help from an Artificial Intelligence insistent on improving our future far beyond what we can presently imagine.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz