Ok, let’s just get one thing out of the way first: no, AI isn’t going to be used for good and the benefit of everyone – not a bloody chance. Unless you think “good” means share prices go astronomic while the rest of us get issued matching peasant cards and a monthly allowance that barely covers a Tesco meal deal.
AI, in theory, could be great. In theory. That’s the annoying part. In theory, AI could remove the worst, most menial jobs – the ones that leave you with a bad back at 40 or make you want to throw your computer out the window – so human beings can spend time on actual life: art, music, raising kids without being knackered, touching grass, maybe even reading a book that isn’t a LinkedIn post about “10x productivity.” In theory, it could free humanity from all the tedious crap we hate doing – the admin, the logistics, the emails, the endless bureaucracy. It could be the thing that lets us actually live. In theory. But we don’t live in theory. We don’t live in a world of “let’s make life better.” We live in a world of “let’s make quarterly profits better.” We live in capitalism – the philosophy where profit is God and people are dispensable.
And that’s the problem. AI isn’t being developed in some moral vacuum by wise, philosopher-engineers who give a shit about humanity. It’s being built by corporations – the same arseholes who brought you mass surveillance, data harvesting, planned obsolescence, and whatever shitty experience you had last time you called customer support. It’s being deployed by governments who still can’t build a sodding website that works but think they’re going to regulate superintelligence.
AI will do what capitalism tells it to do. It’ll be optimised for “engagement,” “efficiency,” “cost reduction” – not compassion, not fairness, not human dignity. The machine doesn’t decide what’s good. It just optimises whatever you feed it. So if the data it is given says that human life is cheap and profit is everything, guess what it’s going to prioritise?
Every company says the same thing: “We’re using AI to empower people.” Empower people to do what, exactly? Work longer hours? Chase KPIs you made up? Lose your job to a chatbot that never sleeps and doesn’t need healthcare?
And governments? Please. They couldn’t regulate a bake sale or a piss-up in a brewery. You think they’re going to regulate artificial intelligence? The EU passed a big “AI Act” that will take years to fully kick in, by which time the technology will have evolved five bloody times and found twelve new loopholes. The UK hosted an “AI Safety Summit” that mostly involved selfies and sandwiches. The US signed an executive order that reads like a wanky university essay – full of words like “responsibly,” “ethically,” “safely,” but with no actual plan to stop anything from happening.
Meanwhile, the companies – OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, Amazon – are shipping new models every few months that can write your emails, make your videos, clone your voice, and deepfake your nan. Every week there’s a new “breakthrough” that’s both amazing and terrifying. AI now does everything except pay taxes or take fucking responsibility.
And the public? Half of you have already packed it in. You’ve handed over your attention, your critical thinking, your will to bloody live, to whatever algorithm pumps you full of dopamine the fastest. AI is just the logical next step of the culture we built. We’re lazy, we crave convenience, we worship speed over substance and profit over people. So we’re building machines that reflect exactly that. AI isn’t going to fix humanity. It’s going to amplify it. The greed, the idiocy, the short-term thinking. It will be a mirror that doesn’t flinch.
Some people optimistically think that AI will take the boring parts of jobs so we can do the interesting bits. Bollocks. That’s not how this works. The boring bits are the job. The admin, the emails, the follow-ups, the reports – that’s what you’re being paid for. If a machine can do all that faster and cheaper, it’s not going to leave you the “fun” part as a hobby. It’s going to take the whole bloody job. All that’ll be left is either running the bloody machines or cleaning up after them.
And when AI does free us from work, what then? Most people wouldn’t have a fucking clue what to do with themselves. We already know what happens when you give people more free time and no structure: they don’t magically turn into poets, they become zombies. Addicted to screens, to distraction, to doing absolutely nothing, to ordering crap they don’t need with money they don’t have to avoid feelings they don’t want to feel.
If work disappears, most people won’t suddenly find purpose – they’ll realise they never had any. Work isn’t just work. It’s structure. It’s meaning. It’s what keeps many people from going completely round the bend. You wake up, you do the thing, you come home, you feel you’ve earned dinner. If AI erases the need for your labour and you don’t need to do anything, what do you do? We’ll be left with existential mush. Some of you will write that novel. Some of you will start a band. Most of you will become full-time sofa cushions. It’s not an insult – it’s a predictable outcome in a comfort-maximising society. Unless we somehow reinvent meaning on a cultural level – community, craft, contribution – AI won’t just make us unemployed; it’ll make us empty.
Now, to be fair, AI does have uses. It can spot tumours, analyse data, design drugs, summarise documents, translate languages. Brilliant. These are all good things. But we won’t use them responsibly. Because again, capitalism doesn’t reward “good.” It rewards “profitable.” The same technology that can detect cancer will also be used to deny insurance claims faster. The same models that write code for scientists will write spam for scammers.
And when AI replaces your job, do you think your company’s going to share the productivity gains with you? Are they fuck. You’ll get a redundancy email generated by the same AI that replaced you. “Dear valued employee, we regret to inform you that your role has been optimised.” Go fuck yourself.
We keep pretending that AI’s this neutral thing – that it’s all about how you use it. But it’s not neutral. It’s being designed, trained, deployed, and owned by the same money-grubbing gits who brought us the housing crisis and zero-hour contracts. When they say they’re building it “for humanity,” what they mean is “for shareholders.”
Even when they’re trying to be nice, it’s still a con. Look at universal basic income – the supposed safety net of the AI future. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? A regular payment so everyone can live while the machines do the work. But let’s be real. That payment will be the bare minimum needed to stop people rioting. It’ll cover food, water, rent, and maybe a pint if you behave. It won’t fund a meaningful life. It’ll fund survival – barely.
And once everyone’s pacified by their monthly allowance and streaming subscription, who’s going to fight back? No one. That’s the point. You won’t rebel against the system if you’re just comfortable enough to keep your gob shut. It’s genius, in a dark way. The world’s richest people will finally achieve their dream – total control through convenience.
“AI for good” is possible, technically. But it would require an entire rewrite of how we measure success. We’d have to stop rewarding companies purely for efficiency and start rewarding them for improving lives. We’d have to actually tax the rich, regulate tech and actually enforce the regulations, invest in culture, education, mental health, purpose, basically all the stuff that stops people turning into wankers. But we won’t. Because every one of those things would put a dent in the short-term bonus for some smug dickhead in a Patagonia gilet.
We’ve got the brains to build AI but not the maturity to handle it. It’s like giving a toddler a flamethrower and hoping the little sod will use it to toast marshmallows instead of the furniture.
Let’s look at the faces of the people leading this so-called revolution. Elon Musk – the man who can’t keep a social network running without turning it into a far-right playground – is out here warning about AI killing us, while simultaneously trying to build his own. Sam Altman gets banned from his own company, comes back a week later like it’s a Netflix drama, and still gets treated like the messiah of machine learning. Meanwhile, Google’s models are literally rewriting history – turning medieval empires into diversity brochures – because their PR team’s terrified of getting fucking cancelled. We’re not in safe hands.
So will AI be used for good? Sure. In small pockets, by people who still give a shit. Doctors, teachers, scientists, maybe even some artists. But on the whole, it’ll be used the same way every powerful tool in history has been used: to control, to extract, to dominate.
The rich will get richer. The middle will vanish. The rest will get “access” … to fuck all
And yet, I do see a tiny sliver of hope. Maybe – just maybe – the universal allowance they’ll end up giving us won’t be completely shit. Maybe it’ll be set high enough for a decent flat, some books, a night out, culture, community, instruments, gym membership and the occasional trip or a cheap train to see a mate. Maybe the AI future will give a few people the time and peace to create something that matters.
But I wouldn’t count on it. In fact I would unfortunately bet my left bollock it being just enough for noodles and a damp boxroom. It’ll be a sedative. Followed by a robotic voice saying: You’re technically not starving, so stop complaining.
I don’t have all the answers. But I am certain that we’re not ready. Not socially, not politically, not psychologically. We shouldn’t be implementing AI at this speed in a system that already doesn’t give a toss about human beings. But we are. Because that’s what we do. We build things we don’t understand, unleash them, and then act shocked when they blow up in our faces.
On the bright side – when AI finally takes over your job, it might at least reply to emails on time. Which, let’s face it, is more than you were doing anyway, you lazy bastard.
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