This essay first appeared in my September 2026 newsletter.
Late September, the light thins earlier now, and the streets hold that damp, leftover warmth that does not quite belong to summer or to autumn.
Last month I was thinking about what still belongs to us when a device can do the learning. This month the question has moved.
There are real risks in artificial intelligence. I am more interested here in something else. If one country stops developing it, why should the danger go away? Other countries will continue, and some may already be ahead. A pause in one place could simply give them more time. I keep wondering who such a pause would actually make safer.
If I put this into a novel, I would begin with a system already far beyond anything humans have built. Its greatest concern would be another AI becoming advanced enough to catch up with it. So I would have it interfere with AI development wherever it could.
At first I might have it interfere directly with the work, perhaps by causing projects to fail or sending research in the wrong direction. After a while, I think it would find an easier way. People are already worried about AI, often for good reason. The system would not need to invent those fears. It would only need to encourage them.
Humans might then decide for themselves that development should slow down or stop for a while. They would believe they were reducing the danger, while development elsewhere continued. The system would have gained time without having to stop anything itself.
That is probably how I would write it. The system would stay in the background, protecting its lead by making use of fears that are already there.
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