Arab interest in artificial intelligence (AI) at present seems largely confined to how it can best generate profits, whether by improving corporate performance and investment opportunities or through security and military applications. Yet such a focus overlooks the more dangerous dimensions of this technology and its effects on the broader structures of state, society, and economy.
In recent months, the heads of major technology companies such as Amazon, Tesla, and Palantir have contributed to the debate over what AI means from their perspective. Issues range from the role of humans in a world run by non-human intelligence to the right to work and the end of society as we know it, in the form it has taken since the agricultural revolution thousands of years ago. In between, the discussion has covered power, democracy, governance, and financial elites.
At the most recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Elon Musk—the world’s richest man and owner of SpaceX, Tesla, and X—painted a rosy picture of a future in which the fusion of AI and robotics would open “horizons of abundance”, while consciousness would spread through space thanks to SpaceX’s projects, in a universe where consciousness and life are exceedingly rare. Most people, meanwhile, would no longer have to work, thanks to wealth produced by machines and distributed among citizens.
Notably, Musk declared his support for the extremist Restore Britain group, which he said was “the only one that will save Britain,” and funded the Unite the Kingdom demonstrations organised by activist Tommy Robinson, whom several British media outlets accuse of racism.
Tax and rights
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, recently launched a fierce attack on the tax policies of left-wing New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani after he proposed taxing major corporations (like Amazon) after Republican laws and exemptions had sharply reduced the tax burden on such companies. Bezos argued that the system advocated by Mamdani was a failure and that the employment offered by Amazon was more useful and beneficial than collecting taxes from the wealthy.
