A fork road of futures
Bureaucrats chase Silicon Valley's shadow while real crises unfold all around us
January 2025 marked the eighteenth month in a nineteen-month period where global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Southern Europe came out from record-breaking temperatures and devastating wildfires last summer, with countries like Italy, Greece, and Spain bearing the brunt of extreme weather events that have claimed tens of thousands of lives. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to fight for its survival against Russian aggression, and the humanitarian crisis in Palestine intensifies. At the Munich Security Conference, US Vice President Vance signaled the end of the transatlantic alliance by releasing an incoherent speech on what he called "the threat from within" - lecturing Europe about freedom of speech while his administration courts autocracies and plans to negotiate Ukraine's fate directly with Russia, bypassing both European allies and Ukraine itself. They also made bids to buy Palestine and turn it into a resort? I'm not sure, I didn’t wanna read that part of the news.
I will admit though that there's something poetically sarcastic watching European bureaucrats discuss artificial intelligence amid this metacrisis. I followed the circus of the Paris AI Summit from the periphery and it also reminded me of Mario Draghi's recent report on European competitiveness (or lack thereof). The whole thing resembled a group of venture capitalists holding a whiteboard session about optimal revenue streams while the landscape is burning around them.
The recent Paris AI Summit offered us a crystal clear glimpse into bureaucratic theater.
Emmanuel Macron opened with deepfake videos of himself which was a rather fitting metaphor for the absurdity of the whole affair
The US Vice President Vance told Europe to stop being so careful about AI regulation, but only for the American AIs, because the Chinese ones are dangerous
The UK refused to sign a statement on "inclusive and sustainable" AI because it supposedly doesn't go far enough on national security – only to have a former advisor admit on social media that it was really about currying favor with the Trump administration
Tech leaders competed to make the most grandiose predictions: AGI in five years! AI consciousness by 2030
Everyone agreed the environmental impact of AI was "unsustainable" while simultaneously pushing for more AI development
China offered to "build a community with a shared future for mankind" while being accused of trying to "seize information infrastructure"
Musk although not present engaged in some billionaire drama with Sam Altman about buying OpenAI which was supposedly never meant to be for-profit in the first place
This is what happens when bureaucratic stagecraft meets the technological hubris of the increasingly right-wing Silicon Valley. Everyone knows their lines, plays their part, and goes home feeling like they've accomplished something, even though nothing has actually changed – except perhaps the acceleration of the very problems they claim to be solving.
The most substantial threat of AI has nothing to do with any how well it can “reason” and “think”. Rather, the "doomsday trap" of artificial intelligence is the dehumanization that this technology makes possible. It's not just a technology – it's a new excuse to try bad ideas again, a spectacle designed as pretext to resist empathy and create emotional distance from actual consequences to humanity.
A different kind of future?
What if Europe's supposed "weaknesses" were actually its strengths? Imagine if, instead of trying to copy Silicon Valley's model of unrestrained technological development, Europe embraced its own distinct path.
What if that path was one that:
Used AI to enhance rather than replace human judgment
Built digital commons instead of digital monopolies
Created systems for resource stewardship rather than resource extraction
Developed technologies for collective wisdom rather than tech bro hegemonies?
The funny thing is that this isn't just possible, but it's perfectly aligned with Europe's existing strengths. The same, annoyingly methodical approach that frustrates tech bros could very well be exactly what we need to develop technologies that serve human thriving rather than corporate profit. And here’s the thing. The tragedy of Draghi's report isn't just its misdiagnosis of Europe's challenges but its failure to recognize them as opportunities. While US tech companies rush to build artificial general intelligence (whatever the fuck that means), Europe has the chance to pioneer a different approach.
And the foundation is already there: slower growth patterns, steady and even just a bit more sustainable infrastructure, relatively good quality of life, work-life balance, somewhat efficient social systems... What's missing is not technological capacity but the imagination to see a path to the future that doesn't have to run through Silicon Valley.
So here's a modest proposal: What if Europe stopped trying to win a race that's heading toward a cliff? What if, instead, it became a place to seriously address our metacrisis and all the interconnected challenges - ecological collapse, democratic decay, epistemicide, and human suffering? Wouldn’t that be real innovation? Wouldn’t that be real leadership?
The choice isn't between competing or declining on the AI game. The choice is about transforming our systems in order to leave a livable planet for future generations, or perish. But first, we need to stop writing reports about competitiveness and start writing new stories about survival, regeneration, and genuine human thriving. And once again, the crisis we face isn't one of competitiveness – it's one of imagination. And that, at least, is something we can fix if we want to.