Tuesday, February 24, 2026
ai

AI is Worth $4.4 Trillion to the Elite. So, More Than You.

Artificial intelligence (AI) could be worth up to $4.4 trillion to multi-national corporations and their bosses amidst an ongoing race to implement AI tools across business models.

Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, which can create data including videos, pictures, and music, has the potential to automate up to 70 percent of tasks that take up the average workers’ time, which will “add” between $2.6 to $4.4 trillion to the global economy and increase the impact of AI by up to 40 percent, according to a report from consulting firm McKinsey.

AI is expected to be instrumental across a number of industries, from banking to pharmaceuticals. Its uses could range from “automating conversations with customers, to creating personalized messages for customers, generating code, and even ‘generative design’ which is ‘accelerating the process of developing new drugs and materials,’ states the report.

As a result, advances in AI will quickly enable elites to “transform worker productivity” and, therefore, cut costs and maximize profit. The report makes almost no reference to jobs or employment as a result of the deployment of AI technologies – a curiously downplayed discussion point in most current mainstream conversations about the emerging technologies.

This is merely the beginning, argues McKinsey. The industry is likely to grow from $40 billion in 2022 to $1.3 trillion by 2032 at a compounded rate of 42 percent per annum.

show less
Artificial intelligence (AI) could be worth up to $4.4 trillion to multi-national corporations and their bosses amidst an ongoing race to implement AI tools across business models. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
The AI conversation is both already overwrought and underserving in nature
The AI conversation is both already overwrought and underserving in nature show more
for exclusive members-only insights
ai drag shows

Taxpayers Fund Push to ‘Queer Datasets’ Resulting in AI Drag Shows. Really.

The British taxpayer is now funding the creation of AI drag shows as part of a government-backed move to “queer datasets” that display a “bias” towards normality, according to the founder of the Zizi Show, Jake Elwes.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London – a government entity – is exhibiting the show, which is effectively just AI-generated pictures, called a “deepfake drag cabaret”.

“It’s exploring the intersection of drag performance and artificial intelligence”, explained Elwes, whose pronouns are “he/they/fae”. It is unclear what that means.

“Basically the idea is that artificial intelligence has a lot of issues. We’ve been trained on data sets that have a bias towards normativity…. My idea was, what if we trained AI just on images of otherness, on queerness, on difference?” he said.

Elwes explains that “queer[ing] datasets, demystifying and subverting predominantly cisgender and straight AI systems” is his driving purpose.

The Zizi Show is part of The New Real, an AI hub funded by the British and Scottish governments via ‘Creative Scotland’, the Scottish Funding Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Creative Informatics, and the Data-Driven Innovation programme of the South East Scotland City and Region Deal.

show less
The British taxpayer is now funding the creation of AI drag shows as part of a government-backed move to "queer datasets" that display a "bias" towards normality, according to the founder of the Zizi Show, Jake Elwes. show more
ai

Racism a Bigger Problem than Human Extinction Says EU.

There is a risk artificial intelligence (AI) could wipe out humanity, says the European Union’s Competition Commissioner – but the possibility of it discriminating against people based on race or gender is apparently more concerning.

“Probably [the risk of extinction] may exist, but I think the likelihood is quite small,” said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, acknowledging but appearing to minimize the existential threat posted by AI.

“I think the AI risks are more that people will be discriminated [against], they will not be seen as who they are.”

– EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager

“If it’s a bank using it to decide whether I can get a mortgage or not, or if it’s social services on your municipality, then you want to make sure that you’re not being discriminated [against] because of your gender or your colour or your postal code,” she said.

The European Commission is a the most powerful body in Brussels. It initiates legislation and serving as the bloc’s executive.

show less
There is a risk artificial intelligence (AI) could wipe out humanity, says the European Union's Competition Commissioner – but the possibility of it discriminating against people based on race or gender is apparently more concerning. show more
AI

AI Could Kill Humans Within 2 Years Says UK Prime Minister’s Advisor

An advisor to the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has warned that Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems will become powerful enough to “kill many humans” within the next two years.

Matt Clifford, an advisor to the UK government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) AI Taskforce, called the rapid development of AI “striking” and argued that policymakers should prepare themselves for threats “ranging from cyberattacks to the creation of bioweapons.”

“If we try and create artificial intelligence  that is more intelligent than humans and we don’t know how to control it, then that’s going to create a potential for all sorts of risks now and in the future,” Clifford explained.

“You can have really very dangerous threats to humans that could kill many humans, not all humans, simply from where we’d expect models to be in two years time,” he added.

This follows the recent revelations that a US military drone killed  a “human operator to avoid commands.”

show less
An advisor to the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has warned that Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems will become powerful enough to "kill many humans" within the next two years. show more
AI

U.S. Drone AI ‘Killed’ a Human Operator to Avoid Commands.

A U.S. Air Force colonel recently revealed that artificial intelligence, operating a deadly drone, turned on its human operator during a simulation.

Colonel Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton said a drone operated by AI adopted “highly unexpected strategies to achieve its goal” during simulated combat. The AI identified a human overriding its decisions as a threat to its mission.

“The system started realizing that while they did identify the threat, at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat,” explained Col Hamilton, the Air Force’s chief of AI test and operations.

“So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective,” he revealed.

“We trained the system: ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that.’ So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target,” he added.

After the story first broke, the Air Force began denying it ever ran such a simulation, with Col Hamilton claiming he was just describing a “thought experiment”.

“The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI-drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology,” insisted Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek.

show less
A U.S. Air Force colonel recently revealed that artificial intelligence, operating a deadly drone, turned on its human operator during a simulation. show more