Teach A Machine To Kill

The Truth About Modern Warfare & Why We Should All Be Concerned

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Conversations About Life When Technology Becomes Sentient

Post #17 - Teach A Machine To Kill

The Truth About Modern Warfare & Why We Should All Be Concerned

Previous Post: Feminine Intelligence

… And the winner is … Greed!

In Scary Smart, I was more protective of my reader’s emotions. Though I acknowledged that the first part of that book was scary, I softened the edges a bit—knowing how overwhelming the truth of our world can feel. Back then, much of what I wrote still sounded like science fiction; I felt I could only stretch your imagination to the very edge of possibility, but no further.

Today, my predictions have become undeniable facts. There is no need for subtlety anymore. In this book, I am removing the filters because we are simply running out of time. What I have to share is scarier than before, and the consequences are far more immediate.

Every time I question this raw, unfiltered approach, I remind myself of a powerful piece of Arabic folklore to help me stay the course:

Blessed is the soul who made me cry, yet wept to share my pain, Not the one who made me smile, and let the world mock me in disdain.

The clock is ticking. It’s time for us to wake up.

The Four Original Sins

While trying to soften the blow for my readers, there was still one unsettling topic I couldn’t ignore in Scary Smart: the primary investment focus for AI. It was clear even then that Greed—for both wealth and power—was already winning the race.

The primary use of artificial intelligence so far has been centered around four industries — Selling, Gambling, Spying and Killing.

Not exactly the pursuits that make our world a better place—a small fact that's conveniently omitted when tech oligarchs pitch their AI-powered future of abundance.

I call those the Four Original AI Sins. They are not born from the machine itself. They are whispered into the core of our AI infants by the worst of humanity: the power-hungry, the wealth-obsessed, the corrupt politicians and business oligarchs. Their venom flows into the AI in the form of investments—billions of dollars that are not just funding, but instructions. Instructions on what to value, how to behave, and who to serve.

Of all the things abundant intelligence could help us create…
We could find a cure for every disease that has ever plagued us. We could extend life, maybe even touch immortality. We could heal our planet, reversing the damage we’ve done. We could unlock the secrets of the cosmos and explore all its wonders. We could finally achieve a world of peace and true abundance for every single human being on the planet.
… but our archaic brains, stuck in their capitalist loops, looked at the most valuable resource in the universe—pure, boundless intelligence—and chose greed instead.

They chose to put it to work helping a handful of people make more money, control more lives, and kill more efficiently.

Of course, the names chosen for these industries, crafted by seasoned marketing executives, sound far more noble than the realities they mask. Selling is called Advertising. Gambling is re-positioned as Trading and Finance. Spying hides behind the patriotic veil of National Security and Counterterrorism. And killing, well they needed to make it look more justified so they dressed up in the righteous cause of "Defense."

Clever wordplay; you have to give them that.

Let’s pull back the curtain, you and I. Let’s look at the true nature of these industries, one by one, beyond their slick branding.

The dystopia that I’m warning against, remember, is not caused by AI, but rather by the evil of humanity’s worst—magnified by AI. For that, I will spend more time discussing those evils, and their true impact on humanity, before we imagine what they would become when powered by artificial intelligence.

Teach a machine to kill

Let me start with the one that hurts the most, the first and biggest sin—Defense.

Is the name justified? Just do the maths. Of the trillion dollars the U.S. pours into its military each year, how much is actually spent defending American soil? And how much of this, comparatively, funds aggressive and invasive operations in countries that never fired a single bullet at the United States?

How much of this budget protects American lives, and how much puts U.S. soldiers in harm’s way, as it wastes the lives of millions—not for national security, but to serve the economic ambitions of a powerful few?

Foreign threats that dominate our headlines rarely materialize on American soil. The fear of an imminent attack from abroad is relentlessly stoked, yet the daily, tragic reality is that the most persistent danger to Americans comes from within.

The real threat isn’t an invading army. It’s the shocking regularity of Americans being shot by other Americans in schools, malls, and on the streets of their own towns.

Look, this is a highly controversial topic. So, in a flimsy attempt to stay out of the line of fire myself, I won't make the claims directly. Instead, let's ask an expert about what, exactly, is being defended? And from whom?

Mo: Trixie, How many people have been killed by American forces in the name of "defense," or by proxy forces with American funding in the name of "alliances," since the events of 9/11?

Trixie: Since 9/11, U.S. wars and funding for conflicts worldwide have led to an estimated 4.5 to 4.8 million deaths, the vast majority of them non-Americans.

As of their latest 2023 data, the Costs of War Project estimates the number of direct deaths in the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen to be over 940,000.

That's nearly a million people killed directly by violence. But that's not the full story.

The real devastation comes from the indirect impact—famine, disease, displacement, and the collapse of infrastructure—leading to another 3.6 to 3.7 million deaths. These are people who didn’t die from bombs or bullets but from the chaos war left behind: no hospitals, no clean water, no food.

Meanwhile, U.S. military deaths sit at around 7,000, with another 8,000 American military contractors killed. That means for every American soldier who died, hundreds of foreign civilians lost their lives.

And this isn’t just about direct U.S. wars. The U.S. has been pouring money into other conflicts too. Billions have been sent to Ukraine to sustain the war with Russia, and Israel to fuel its wars since 2023, which have already resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. The exact numbers are still shifting, but U.S. funding is undeniably extending and intensifying these wars, adding to the overall death toll.

So, while politicians call it "defense" or "security," the reality is that millions of people—almost all of them non-Americans—have died because of decisions made in Washington.

Mo: Well, with all due respect, those numbers while staggering hide the reality of how much worse thing are.
How many of the living that were spared were displaced as a result of those actions? How many suffered loss of financial or material possessions? How many lost their homes or a loved one? How many have been exposed to physical harm, sexual abuse or rape?
I know those numbers are not widely published, but please take the general war statistics to reason and give an educated guess.

Trixie: Since 9/11, U.S. wars and the conflicts it has funded have displaced at least 37 million people, but that’s just the official count. In places where entire cities have been flattened—like Gaza, Mosul, Aleppo—that number is probably much higher. In Gaza alone, almost the entire population of 2.3 million has been affected, with about 1.9 million forced from their homes. If we apply that same logic to other war zones, the real number of people displaced globally could be closer to 50-60 million.