Political economy · Technology · Historical parallel — Stand‑alone essay
Fifty years after the political Right redefined efficiency as a virtue of the smaller state, Silicon Valley's AI evangelists increasingly promise a far more radical economy: dramatically lower costs, drastically fewer workers, and an eventual world beyond ordinary employment.
Pau, 24 September 2026 — by Andre Zolnai
AI‑assisted research and drafting
This New York Times opinion piece argues that the most dangerous AI risk is not accidental loss of control but our deliberate choice to allow AI systems to engage in recursive self-improvement (RSI), where they autonomously design and train ever more powerful successors. The author contends that because we already struggle to understand and control current frontier models, letting them improve themselves would rapidly push capabilities beyond human comprehension and oversight, so RSI should be banned or strictly prohibited until safety can be convincingly demonstrated. The column situates this proposal within a wider debate in which some AI leaders call for “pacing the frontier” or even a moratorium on advanced AI development, while political and commercial pressures—and rival states like China—push for rapid acceleration.
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Source: what is doom loop
19 September, 2026
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| Sadhu reading in Kathmandu, Nepal (1965, Greg Zolnai) |
The first three posts in this series traced the AI doom loop, the rare‑book “buy → despine → scan → discard” pipeline, and the legal and copyright fault lines. This fourth post brings the story down to the level of historical and geospatial research: what happens to projects that rely on old maps, local histories, and specialized monographs when those sources are privatized, degraded, or made less accessible.
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| AI-generated by author (Medium) |
The first two posts in this series framed the “tiger eating its tail” dynamic of AI doom loops and mapped the “buy → despine → scan → discard” pipeline for rare and out‑of‑print books. This third post focuses on the legal and copyright fault lines: who owns these texts, on what basis AI companies use them, and where the law may yet draw a line.
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| medievalist.net |
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| Mouseion Alexandreias, "Shrine of the Muses of Alexandria" |
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Source: What is a doom loop
18 September, 2026
This follows on a history note here if we remember "whence AI?" First of a series continuing here.
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| Original tale, YouTube |
There is an Indian folk image, often told as a kind of nursery rhyme, of a child and a tiger chasing each other around a tree, round and round, until both are worn down and “turn into butter.” It is a vivid picture of a futile, self‑consuming loop: motion without progress, effort that only exhausts and dissolves what it started with.
That image fits the emerging “AI slop cycle” uncannily well. As models train increasingly on text generated by earlier models, and as the public web fills with AI‑influenced content, we risk a kind of cultural churning: language and knowledge going in circles, losing texture and truth, until everything starts to feel smoothed into an indistinct paste.
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| At Teknica of TekXpert Systems, Calgary 1987 |
During the final minutes of the first lunar landing, a cryptic 1202 alarm flashed on the Lunar Module's display. In Mission Control, a young engineer's quick call—"go on that alarm"—kept the mission alive. The real hero had written that resilience into the code years earlier: Margaret Hamilton.
At roughly 33,000 ft above the Moon, the Apollo Guidance Computer lit up with program alarm 1202. Buzz Aldrin read it aloud; Neil Armstrong asked what it meant. In Houston, the room went very still. The ground was rushing up, and every second of hesitation cost precious altitude.
"The alarms were not the sound of failure. They were the sound of the machine choosing correctly."
Update 1: where I'm at & where I may be going here.
Update 2: next on this AI series here.
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Source: at bottom
Septembre 13, 2026
Following an AI series on Entwhistle vineyard, religious regimes, Old Testament & Climate Change, Remote Sensing & Investigative Journalism and 9/11 contextualized today, here is China presented by the person best placed to comment...
AI composition starts here.
In a July 2026 Ezra Klein Show episode, former Australian prime minister and China scholar Kevin Rudd explains how to read Xi Jinping’s ideology, why 2028 stands out as a high‑risk year for Taiwan, and what a wise U.S. strategy should look like.
Update: next on this AI series here
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Follow-on to previous post
September 12, 2026
After relating my personal recollection of 9/11, here's a broader view by experts in the field. What struck me is nations and people seeking to be recognized and accepted as régimes evolved - this was particularly acute for me & my parents as Hungarian refugees in the aftermath of 1956 - this piece frames that from both the migrant and the host perspectives against the canvas of before & after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
AI composition follows.
In a new Ezra Klein Show episode, political scientist Francis Fukuyama revisits his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man and explains how the post‑9/11 era helped set the stage for Donald Trump, U.S.–China rivalry, and today’s crisis of liberal democracy.
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| hover mouse over: forward backward arrows, tap 3 dots: full caption |
Update: see here a follow-on post contextualizing 9/11 today.
My second post written by me not AI (they're all prefaced as such), and nostalgia too: that was around being paid to hike in the Rockies 41 years go; this is more topical as an anniversary and as social commentary - more here on religious regimes causing same, & here on the Middle-East vs. the West - 9/11 was during my tenure in So.Cal. as an international marketing manager for a premier GIS firm.
Update 1: Added two 'couleur locale' stories here
Update 2: riff here on a French poem and early travel to Southern Canadian Rocky Mtns.
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| Looking W toward the Front Ranges on Nihahi Ridge, S Alberta Rocky Mtn. Foothills |
I spent the summer of 1985 in the Southern Canadian Rocky Mountains mapping the Front Ranges just past Nihahi Creek. This is in the Kananaskis Public Land Use Zone (PLUZ) of southwestern Alberta. A Park Ranger helicopter took our gear in, we hiked in and the chopper moved our camp twice. The third move never happened: forest fires in Southeaster British Columbia across the water divide requisitioned the chopper. So we left the gear behind, and Park Rangers called us when the chopper was free to pick up our gear at the local Ranger Station North of Canyon Creek, the next creek North of Little Elbow Creek access point to Nihahi Ridge.
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Source: Susan Hornburg acreage SW of Calgary AB 1989
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| AI‑generated c/w Dad’s Chinook Arch, Foothills near Calgary, early spring light |
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Source: Perplexity prompt
Date: 8 September 2026
Former Guardian & twitter now Google data journalist Simon Rogers said “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”, after C.P. Scott's 1921 Guardian motto. Read on for a textbook case in today's New York Times.
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| click to enlarge, Google Earth screen grab by author |
AI composition starts here.
"Learn a new thing a day" my late gran said, "and you shall stay young". I remember my late Latin prof at the Lycée in Pau tracing down Allées de Morlaas... she certainly stayed young!
AI composition starts here
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| click to enlarge |
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| Pallet from overwintering, separator keeps queen & brood below honey above, enclosure against cattle & deer in rancher's field, Priddis, Alberta, AI reconstructed by writer beekeeper 1980-1990, photographs not available. |
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| Hereford bull. Photo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) |