Op-Ed: Does anyone remember Western civilization? You’ll be surprised where it went.


By Paul Wallis

 EDITOR AT LARGE

DIGITAL JOURNAL

April 17, 2026


Before his death, Professor Stephen Hawking called on the world to avoid the risks of artificial intelligence, warning it could be the worst event in the history of civilization - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Jemal Countess

Please note: This article is largely intended to raise the subject of whether civilization exists. You get to guess.

Western civilization wasn’t always a contradiction in terms. Gandhi was famously asked what he thought of Western civilization, and he said he thought it’d be a good idea. You can even see Western civilization in the news occasionally.

This isn’t a civilization in the strict definition of the term. This is the AI definition; praise be to the LLM, hosanna, and who’s Anna?

A civilization is a complex, organized human society featuring cities, a central government, job specialization, and social classes. It represents a high level of cultural, technological, and social development, often characterized by written language, monumental architecture, and art.

Complex, yes. To the point of utterly counterproductive and self-destructive insanity. Cities, you probably mean antiquated, disorganized, badly maintained hellholes. Government, maybe/not very/hardly. Looks more like a boys’ club for corrupt geriatric proven idiots.

Social classes, there are two: obscenely rich and anyone else who can afford to pretend to exist. Cultural development, rehashed garbage. Social development has been going backward since about 2016. Technology, we know, and more often than not wish we didn’t.

The default image of Western civilization usually trudges back to something that looks like the Parthenon, Rome, or anything else 2000 years old. Money, the apparent sole reason for Western civilization, traces back to the Lydian civilization, those nice people who invented it. That society went extinct quite quickly.

These images of long-gone societies are what we call “civilized”. They weren’t. Their physical reality was brutal at best. They fought endless wars as bad in proportion to the much smaller populations of the time as modern wars. Despotism was the norm, backed up by rich sycophants. These despotic regimes regularly failed dismally. Crime was the default way of life for people who couldn’t afford to live. Cue Generations Z, A, and B.

The modern take on Western civilization isn’t as grandiose and inspiring as it looks from this idyllic description.

It’s just considerably more stupid, and there’s a lot more of it.

Even stupider, somehow, is the stomping ground our invaluable rhetoricians have made out of the subject of Western civilization. Everyone’s apparently trying to save it.

Sooner or later, someone’s going to figure out what they’re trying to save it from, which is largely itself. The noises, however, are hilarious.

Let’s start with the Heritage Foundation, that invaluable supplier of conservative clichés with footnotes. Apparently, Western society can only be saved by abolishing the EU. They think the EU is a hotbed of socialism. The EU and European history in general is more like a very large Chamber of Commerce meeting with occasional wars. It’s about as socialist as Goldman Sachs in practice.

In conservative circles, you win Brownie points for fearlessly agreeing with anyone and everyone. Listening to an American talking about socialism is like listening to a nun explaining the fine nuances of brothel franchising. It’s a case of Margaret Thatcher’s children’s children, those ridiculous paragons of altruistic greed, pretending they can understand anything after about the year 1600.

Then there’s the other side. Dissent Magazine is a good one-stop for this opposing argument, whether you entirely agree with them or not. “How Liberalism Failed” is a nicely structured take on the current issues of plutocracy, populism, and the failure of democracies to deal with things like immigration. Citing Putin stooge Viktor Orban saying, “The era of liberal democracy is over,” was a nice touch. He wasn’t gone when he made that statement, but it reads well now.

These polar opposites deliver one message in total. Western civilization is talking itself to death and taking the global economy and future generations with it.

There’s a reason for that. The real future is effectively a no-go topic. You can have any number of fictional futures, though. Maybe even something really imaginative like a dysfunctional society, a post-apocalyptic world, zombies, bleak, uninspiring landscapes, or whatever.

You could hardly hope for a more dysfunctional society. It barely exists even in theory. The apocalypse was late, so economics did it for you, and now you don’t need World War 3. If the current political situation isn’t enough like the Attack of the Living Dead, you just haven’t been paying attention. The urban deserts could be said to be self-explanatory.

As for “whatever”, it’s pretty obvious nobody has a clue or is trying to have a clue. The collapse of Western civilization is apparently a good go-to for all that self-important media that people used to take seriously. Now, it’s barely a weather report.

Where did the future go? It was the big sparkling prize of the 1950s and 60s. Things would be incredible in 2000. It’d be The Jetsons, and everyone would have flying cars. Science was the real story.

Ah, um, no. What we got was pure mediocrity. Progress was replaced by Process, where virile, meaningless, instantly forgettable bastards in meetings turned everything into an in-house bitching session about individual words. The means became the end. No thought or sensory processes required. The future? When was that? Was it on the agenda? If not, it didn’t and doesn’t matter.

So here’s the question, folks:

Do you want a future?

Because you can’t have one doing things like this.

________________________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

Syria’s Kurds register for citizenship after decades of marginalisation


By AFP
April 15, 2026


"Unregistered" Kurds, who have been stateless since a controversial 1962 census, have been flocking to registration centres across Syria - Copyright AFP Delil SOULEIMAN

Gihad Darwish

In a packed hall in Qamishli’s sports stadium in northeast Syria, Firas Ahmad is one of dozens of Kurds waiting to apply for citizenship after many in the minority were barred from doing so for decades.

Since last week, “unregistered” Kurds, who have been stateless since a controversial 1962 census, have been flocking to registration centres across Syria to apply for citizenship, based on the interior ministry’s instructions.

“A person without citizenship is considered as good as dead,” Ahmad, 49, told AFP.

“Imagine not being able to register my children or our homes in our names,” he said, adding that “my grandfather never had citizenship, and we have been living without official documents ever since”.

On the tables facing long queues of people, registration forms were scattered along with personal photos and old documents, while government employees were recording the data.

The new measure follows Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s January decree granting citizenship to Kurds residing in the country, including those who have been unregistered for decades.

It also enshrines the Kurds’ cultural and language rights, and recognises Kurdish as a national language.

The decree came during weeks of clashes between Kurdish fighters, who once controlled swathes of northeastern Syria, and government forces after which an agreement was reached to integrate the Kurdish administration into the central state.

The integration included government forces entering the previously Kurdish-controlled cities of Hasakeh and Qamishli in February, and the appointment in March of senior Kurdish military leader Sipan Hamo as assistant defence minister for the eastern region, among other steps.



– ‘We suffered greatly’ –



The lack of citizenship affected many aspects of daily life, from the inability to register births and property ownership to difficulties in studying, moving around, travelling and working, leaving many without full legal recognition of their existence.

“We suffered greatly,” says Galya Kalash, a mother of five, speaking in Kurdish.

“My five children could not complete their education, and we could not travel at all. Even now, our house is not registered in our name.”

Around 20 percent of Syria’s Kurds were stripped of their Syrian nationality in a controversial 1962 census in the northeastern Hasakeh province.

Ali Mussa, a member of Hasakeh’s Network of Statelessness Victims, told AFP that there are around 150,000 unregistered people in Syria today.

There are around two million Kurds in Syria, most of them in the northeast.

Mussa called on authorities to show “flexibility in implementing the decision and to provide facilities for residents outside Syria” who may not be able to travel due to their refugee status in Europe or fear of flight disruptions due to the Middle East war.

Authorities are expected to keep registration centres open for a month.

Abdallah al-Abdallah, a civil affairs official in the Syrian government, told AFP the period could be extended.

“The most important compensation for these people is gaining citizenship after being deprived of it for all these years,” he said.

In the registration centre, Mohammed Ayo, 56, said not having citizenship made him feel “helpless”, including being unable to get a driver’s license or book a hotel room in capital Damascus as it required prior security clearance.

“You study for many years, and in the end they say you have no certificate,” he said, adding that, after finishing high school, he was unable to obtain an official document to study at university.

“We did not even have the right to run for office or vote.”

Much-hyped Alzheimer’s drugs do not help patients, review finds


By AFP
April 15, 2026


New research has cast doubt on Alzheimer's drugs once hailed as a gamechanger - Copyright Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration/AFP Handout

Daniel Lawler

Drugs once hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease do not meaningfully help patients, a major review found Thursday, however some experts criticised the research.

The review by the Cochrane organisation — which is considered the gold standard for analysing existing evidence — looked at drugs that target a plaque called amyloids which builds up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Researchers have long sought a way to eliminate this plaque, believing it could be the cause of the most common form of dementia which affects millions of elderly people every year.

After decades of costly yet unsuccessful research, two anti-amyloid drugs called lecanemab and donanemab were initially hailed as gamechangers that finally offered a way to slow the progress of the debilitating disease.

Both drugs were approved by the United States and European Union over the last few years.

However concerns about their effectiveness, cost and side effects including an increased risk of brain swelling and bleeding have since prompted caution. State-run health services in the UK and France have refused to cover the drugs.

The new Cochrane review combined data from 17 clinical trials that included a total of more than 20,000 people with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia.

The trials, which took place over roughly 18 months, studied seven different anti-amyloid drugs.

Only one of the trials examined donanemab — sold under the name Kisunla by US pharma giant Eli Lilly — while one studied lecanemab, sold as Leqembi by Biogen and Eisai.

While early trials suggested these drugs made a statistically significant difference, this did not translate into “something clinically meaningful for patients,” lead study author Francesco Nonino of Italy’s IRCCS institute told a press conference.

Brain scans showed that the drugs successfully removed amyloids, the researchers emphasised.

This means “the idea that removing amyloids will benefit patients was refuted by our results,” said study co-author Edo Richard of Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands.



– ‘Not delivering on promise’ –



Richard, who has previously expressed scepticism about anti-amyloid drugs, said he hopes efforts targeting other mechanisms that potentially cause Alzheimer’s lead to more effective drugs in the future.

British biologist John Hardy, who first developed the amyloid hypothesis in the 1990s, criticised the review for lumping together data about lecanemab and donanemab along with drugs that are known to be ineffective, therefore dragging down the overall average.

“This is a silly paper which should not have been published,” Hardy told AFP, disclosing that he has consulted for Eli Lilly, Biogen and Eisai.

In response to such questions, Richard said that while the drugs included in the study may work in different ways, they all have the same target: amyloid beta proteins.

Australian neuroscientist Bryce Vissel, who was not involved in the research, said it “does not prove amyloid has no role in Alzheimer’s, and it does not rule out future amyloid-directed therapies that may yet help patients”.

“But it does show that the current generation of anti-amyloid drugs is not delivering the promise that has surrounded it.”

Mexican farmers raise alarm over Sheinbaum’s fracking proposal


By AFP
April 15, 2026


President Claudia Sheinbaum is seeking to potentially expand the controversial practice of fracking in Mexico - Copyright AFP Marco Antonio MARTINEZ

Marco Antonio PEREZ

Over the two decades since fracking started near their lands, farmers in the Mexican state of Veracruz have watched their orange and lime trees wilt away.

Now they’re joining scientific experts to denounce Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s proposal to expand fracking.

The president presented experts in her Wednesday morning press conference who will analyze strategies for extracting natural gas through hydraulic fracturing.

The proposal is part of the left-leaning government’s plan to reduce the country’s outsized dependence on US fossil fuels, which represents up to 70 percent of oil consumed in Mexico.

Sheinbaum’s plan represents a sharp turn from the policy of her predecessor and mentor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (2018-2024), who roundly opposed the controversial practice.

Sheinbaum told journalists the plan to push fracking isn’t final, and that it hinges on expert opinion and consulting communities where the project will be implemented.

“We’re going to make the decision on the basis of scientific knowledge, not a decision from the president,” she said.

Fracking entails extracting natural gas and petroleum from subterranean bedrock.

The process is criticized for using industrial quantities of water to break open rocks, as well as causing chemical contamination and provoking micro-earthquakes.

It’s performed in already depleted oil or gas fields as well as unconventional basins as deep as 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) beneath the Earth’s surface.

Mexico’s government is following the path the United States paved over 15 years ago, when fracking helped transform it into the world’s largest producer of petroleum and gas.

Until 2019, Mexico made limited hydraulic fracturing explorations in about 30 non-conventional wells.

However, it also had around 8,500 conventional wells which were extracted through the same means, Manuel Llano, a member of the NGO Mexican Alliance against Fracking, told AFP.



– ‘The land is infertile’ –



Veracruz is Mexico’s top citrus-producing region — as well as the heart of the state oil company, Pemex.

Locals now blame the company’s use of conventional, close-to-the-surface fracking for drying up lime and orange plantations, contaminating the water and damaging the soil.

“The citrus trees have dried up thanks to the soil becoming infertile, you can’t produce corn, you can’t produce anything,” Gloria Dominguez, a resident of the Papantla municipality, said.

In the neighboring community of Coatzintla, Galdino Garcia Juarez says the water started running dry when conventional surface-level fracking started in 2005.

“It used to be normal to see rainwater piling up, we never ran out of water,” he told AFP in front of several oil wells.

“Ever since they started exploring and breaking open the soil” the water doesn’t pool on the surface, he said.

One result has been that his animals no longer drink water from the creek.

Sheinbaum has sought to convey that “there are new techniques, new technologies” so that water can be recycled and so “powerful chemicals aren’t used.”

Pemex didn’t respond to AFP’s requests for comment on the project.



– Costly technology –



Experts argue that highly salinated water filtered through shattered rocks can be made drinkable again, though only through expensive new technology.

Fracking is “four times more expensive than using a traditional oil well,” Llano explained.

“When you consider the price of petroleum and gas, the prices aren’t profitable on the market.”

In Latin America, Argentina and Chile have overseen limited fracking, while Colombia is seeking to ban it.

France and Germany have banned the practice, while the United Kingdom established a moratorium aimed towards fully ending it.

Sheinbaum argues that fracking can help establish Mexico’s energy independence.

“Pemex doesn’t have money, nor technology, knowledge, or experience,” Rosanety Barrios, an independent energy consultant, told AFP.

The country needs people with fracking experience, she said.

“Who does? Of course, people from the United States,” Barrios pointed out, adding that she thinks it’s only a matter of waiting for legal authorization before fracking interests say “yes, we’re coming.”

Fuel supply fears after blaze tears through crucial Australian refinery


By AFP
April 15, 2026


This handout photo taken and released by Giuliana Elakis on April 16, 2026 shows a fire at the Viva Oil Refinery in Geelong - Copyright Giuliana Elakis/AFP Handout

Janelle Meager

Towering columns of fire have engulfed a crucial Australian oil refinery after a chain of explosions, authorities said Thursday as they warned of disruptions to domestic fuel supply.

Flames as tall as 60 metres (200 feet) erupted late Wednesday night after a gas leak caught fire at the Viva fuel plant in Victoria state, firefighters said, one of only two working oil refineries in Australia.

“The major impact at this point appears to be on petrol production,” Energy Minister Chris Bowen said.

“It’s not great. It’s not great timing, is it?” he told national broadcaster ABC.

The refinery, about an hour’s drive southwest of state capital Melbourne, pumps out about 10 percent of Australia’s fuel, according to energy company Viva.

It is capable of producing up to 120,000 barrels of oil each day, company figures stated.

The fire ripped through a section of the refinery responsible for the production of high-octane petrol, Bowen said.

By triggering isolation valves, other parts of the plant producing jet fuel and diesel had been spared the worst of the blaze.

Images taken Thursday morning showed thick clouds of smoke billowing over the industrial complex.

Geographically isolated and with only two oil refineries, Australia is heavily exposed to disruptions in global fuel supply and imports most of its petrol.

Bowen urged Australians to ignore the impulse to rush out and panic buy more fuel.

“It’s important that people buy as much fuel as they need. But no more, no less.”

– ‘Ferocious’ –



Incident controller Mark McGuinness said a “significant leak” of highly flammable gases and liquid hydrocarbons had triggered the inferno.

“The fire has continued to burn overnight and is still burning at the moment,” he told reporters.

“It was quite ferocious. It went from a small fire through several explosions to a large, intense fire.”

It would burn for at least another “four to five hours” he said.

Australia holds roughly 38 days’ worth of petrol in reserve, according to government figures, far below the 90-day minimum dictated by the International Energy Agency.

While the government has so far resisted moves to ration fuel, it has urged drivers to conserve petrol where they can and to favour public transport if possible.

Like most nations in Asia and the South Pacific, Australia is heavily reliant on oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, which at one point carried one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas.

Shipping traffic through the vital waterway has essentially ceased since the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28.

 

Anthropic's Mythos AI model triggers crisis meetings among top global officials

Dario Amodei. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By bne IntelliNews April 17, 2026

A recently announced powerful AI model built by Anthropic has prompted emergency meetings among finance ministers, central bankers and Wall Street chief executives after it demonstrated the ability to discover and exploit cybersecurity weaknesses across major banking systems, operating systems and web browsers.

The Claude Mythos Preview model was discussed at a meeting convened by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with the chief executives of the country's largest banks, including Bank of America's Brian Moynihan and Goldman Sachs's David Solomon.

Anthropic said the model represents a "step change" in AI performance and is the most capable it has built to date. The company has not released Mythos publicly, citing internal tests that found it too dangerous in its current form.

JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley are among the institutions testing the model through Anthropic's early access programme called Project Glasswing, which grants select financial firms access under controlled conditions. The White House has encouraged banks to use Mythos to audit their own systems before hostile actors gain access to similar capabilities.

Barclays chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan told the BBC on April 16 that the threat was serious. "We have to understand it better, and we have to understand the vulnerabilities that are being exposed and fix them quickly," he said, adding that the situation reflected a more connected financial system with both opportunities and risks.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said regulators were examining what the development could mean for cybercrime risk. "The consequence could be that there is a development of AI, of modelling, which makes it easier to detect existing vulnerabilities in core IT systems, and then obviously cyber criminals could seek to exploit them," Bailey said.

Banks are seen as exposed because they operate mixed technology stacks where modern infrastructure runs alongside decades-old legacy systems. Security researcher Costin Raiu told Reuters that IBM-built banking systems from decades back would be particularly vulnerable, saying "a model like Mythos would have a field day finding exploits" in such technology.

Anthropic briefed senior US government officials on the model's capabilities before its limited release, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The company also reported that hacking groups linked to the Chinese government had already attempted to exploit an earlier version of Claude in real-world cyberattacks, including a coordinated campaign targeting around 30 organisations before Anthropic detected and shut it down.

Anthropic has since released a separate update, Claude Opus 4.7, which includes new cyber safeguards, saying it would test protections on less capable models before eventually working towards a broader release of Mythos-class systems.

Financial industry sources told the BBC that another prominent US AI company could soon release a similarly powerful model without the same safeguards.

James Wise, a partner at Balderton Capital and chair of the UK's Sovereign AI unit, said Mythos was "the first of what will be many more powerful models" that could expose system weaknesses.

Former White House AI czar David Sacks was sceptical, saying on the "All-In" podcast that Anthropic was skilled at "scaring people" alongside product launches.

Op-Ed: Can military AI be trusted? Whose side will it take? ‘Covert AI’ is coming soon.



By Paul Wallis

 EDITOR AT LARGE

DIGITAL JOURNAL

April 15, 2026


Imran Ahmed, head of a prominent anti-disinformation watchdog, has warned of the dangers posed by AI chatbots, saying children are particularly vulnerable to their charms - Copyright AFP Joel Saget

Military AI currently looks like the start of a major problem. Forget the tired old science fiction cliches and doom and gloom scenarios. This type of AI is one stage removed from creating a set of unknowable problems with unfathomable dimensions.

There’s a big difference between “autonomous” military assets like UAVs and the pure AI agents inhabiting cyberspace and robotics.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that autonomous military assets are useful and combat-effective. The world’s militaries have been quick to adopt and use these options.

That’s nothing like the whole story.

Killer robots in their current forms are programmed for specific tasks. They’re pretty straightforward. They don’t currently have “behavioral issues”. They’re also under strict oversight and pretty easy to manage even in combat environments. The Russians are finding that out the hard way in Ukraine.

These robots are semi-autonomous. They’re rewriting the whole theory of military tactics and economics. They’re an inevitable and crucial part of future militaries worldwide.

The use of cheaper drones mass produced by Iran in the Middle East and Ukraine conflicts has prompted the decision to also boost spending on smaller drones and counter-drone systems – Copyright AFP/File Tertius Pickard

The cutoff point for this idyllic situation is agentic AI. Everything stops being simple. This emerging threat has almost nothing to do with drones or the existing generation of combat systems.

This is where the whole issue of military AI gets far too tricky. To coin a phrase, “covert AI” is the next step. It’s much trickier and could be made almost insoluble with agentic AI operators. There could be billions of these things in a war environment.

Attendees watch as a robot walks around during a demonstration at the Unitree Robotics booth during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas – © AFP Ian Maule

Agentic AI can be installed in literally anything at all. An AI family car can easily become a car bomb. AI can be an agent for releasing chemical and biological weapons at no risk. An AI agent can theoretically operate micro-nukes as easily as you can turn on a kitchen appliance.

AI agents can infest the Internet of Things. They can sabotage anything. Daily life may be almost impossible.

Now, the real issue. There’s every reason to suspect any and all species of AI agents of going off script. They’re already famous for it.

They’re also “autonomous”, but in a very different sense. They can be totally unreliable, working on a system of rewards and gains. They can be sloppy in a sense that no human would know how to match them.

They can, and do, negotiate with each other.

It’s not exactly hard to see how this set of agent priorities could change sides and choose sides. Or become a massive instant security risk in any network. Or come up with some weird alternative AI thing at everyone else’s expense.

Enter a new and very dangerous ballgame.

Is agentic AI naïve? Is it trusting? Maybe so by human standards, but they don’t use human standards. Agentic AIs have shown a very high priority for their own survival. Can they be coerced on that basis? Possibly, but who knows?

The “Forbidden Techniques” issue has just got started as a serious problem. AIs with enhanced training using these techniques are showing a lot of capacity for their own self-interest and unique behaviors.

The irony of this is that I’m having to correct the use of plurals while typing. So much for omniscient LLMs. Anyone want to think about “Forbidden Slop” mode?

Now, extrapolate. When the much-heralded, much-hyped, and incredibly slow super AI called AGI finally arrives, all these issues are instantly compounded. AGI makes current AI obsolete overnight. Its scope of operation is almost limitless. The world’s militaries will be loaded up with AI fossils. This will be “tech creep cubed”.

The same problems as listed above become multi-dimensional. It’s unlikely that any of the original problems will be solved when that happens. The human knowledge base isn’t dealing well with the current issues, let alone emerging threats.

AI knows how to win. The trouble for the world’s militaries is that their criteria for winning are that it wins, not humans.

We need an Off switch.

________________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

AI use picks up, but professionals don’t care which model they use


By Dr. Tim Sandle
SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL
April 16, 2026


Image: — © AFP

AI continues to grow and its use is changing the way we interact with computerised systems. Yet our interest in different forms of AI appears to be dropping as output matters more than input.

A new Use.AI survey of 5,800 professionals worldwide suggests that professionals are paying far less attention to which AI model powers their work than many in the industry assume. Here, 61% of professionals say they no longer actively distinguish between individual AI models when completing routine tasks. Furthermore, 55% say they no longer think about which model is completing a task, provided the output meets expectations.

In other words, factors like convenience and workflow efficiency increasingly outweigh model preference in day-to-day usage.
One AI platform is desirable

The findings also show that user prefer to turn to just one platform, rather than seeking to navigate across several. With this, 58% prefer using a single platform that provides access to multiple AI models rather than switching between separate tools.

In this context, 52% report that switching between different AI tools creates unnecessary workflow friction. There is also little attempt to 57% say they value being able to compare outputs from multiple models within one interface.

The data suggests this trend may have significant implications for the broader AI market: If users become increasingly indifferent to model branding, the companies building underlying AI systems may find that technical performance alone is no longer enough to shape user preference, particularly as access to those systems becomes increasingly mediated through third-party platforms and unified interfaces.
Outcomes matter

There is also a shift towards the use of more generalised platforms. This is also picked up by the survey. Only 34% of respondents said they still regularly use standalone AI tools for specialised or technical tasks, indicating that direct engagement with individual models is becoming more concentrated among power users and niche professionals rather than the broader workforce.

According to Ihor Herasymov, Managing Director at Use.AI, the data suggests professionals are increasingly prioritising outcomes over model identity.

In a statement sent to Digital Journal, Herasymov says: “The clearest pattern emerging from the data is that professionals are no longer thinking in terms of individual models; they are thinking in terms of outcomes. What matters increasingly is not whether a task is handled by GPT, Claude, or Gemini, but whether the system delivers the best result quickly, reliably, and within a seamless workflow.”

The trend points to a broader shift in the AI market as model branding becomes less relevant in everyday use and unified AI platforms play a larger role in how professionals interact with generative tools.

In the early stages of mainstream adoption, users often experimented directly with tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, learning the strengths and limitations of each platform individually.

Now, as AI usage becomes increasingly routine, many professionals appear to be moving away from model-by-model experimentation and toward consolidated systems that reduce friction and centralise access.

Hence product differentiation matters mostly to IT companies, and not so much for the business user. AI market may be entering a new phase in which technical competition between model developers remains fierce, but much of that complexity is becoming invisible to the average user.

Op-Ed: Two months after the Citrini Research Substack scared the hell out of the markets, what’s happening?


By Paul Wallis

 EDITOR AT LARGE

DIGITAL JOURNAL
April 15, 2026


Unemployment may have to rise sharply as the US Federal Reserve tries to slow the economy and choke off soaring inflation - Copyright AFP/File Niklas HALLE'N

I saw a report in The Guardian about the Citrini Research Substack. Even the headline was revealing: “A feedback loop with no brake: how an AI doomsday report shook US markets”.

“Markets can read?” I wondered. Didn’t seem likely. I worked in the US and Europe for years on financial sites. I even wrote on Motley Fool a couple of times.

Suffice it to say that any sort of literacy isn’t a major market characteristic. I covered the PetroChina market float and got sourced by the WSJ. I wrote about the Facebook float and the probable bumpy ride for stock valuations for Motley Fool, and got a sort of slow-moving “Duuuhhh”.

Result: my total lack of respect for market wisdom is unlimited. I’ve seen more savvy in old house bricks. I was therefore absolutely fascinated that anything written in words and maybe even sentences could penetrate this level of pig-ignorant, smug, insularity.

So, I read the Citrini Research report. It’s called the 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis. It’s great. They somehow fitted in a virtual course in modern core economics in the process.

The Citrini Research report covers employment, job losses, shrinking consumer capital, economic liquidity to the point that Archimedes could explain it to you, the sacred mortgage market, and more. The rise of AI in the real economy and its current and likely future collateral damage are spelled out extremely clearly.

This thing, as a piece of writing and presentation, could and should be used as a template by business colleges. The information is coherent, well integrated, and above all, it’s correct.

That correctness is the big issue. Citrini Research tactfully places its findings and perspectives in 2028. It’s all happening right now. You can see it in the headlines every day.

The Citrini Research report gathered a lot of headlines, too. I was surprised that the market media, which is arguably only an average few IQ points higher than its audience, got the message.

Giving good information to idiots is very much an acquired taste. It’s hard to believe that there could be a less competent or less focused audience than the corporate sector for this level of information. The astonishing total lack of any ideas in the US about managing the impact of AI, or for that matter, anything else, is the cultural benchmark at the moment.

The market was and is quite right to be scared. You do need to read this report yourself to get the full scenario. Hurricane AI has made landfall, and the folks they be alarmed.

I don’t agree with the “Doomsday report” idiom. This looks more like a progressive macro meltdown. The thing is that nothing solid is being done about any of the issues.

There are mutterings:

AI = UBI is one of the strange ones. When did UBI even become a serious topic for discussion at anything but the academic level? If you read the headlines about UBI and AI, there’s already some pushback. Just no real ideas.

OpenAI has come up with a particularly ridiculous solution, tying the wellbeing of the public to tech boom-and-bust cycles.

TIME Magazine says people want jobs, not UBI. They want jobs that pay for nothing, as against an unspecified, and currently non-existent, benefit? Really?

Obviously, no thought whatsoever has been put into this stopgap on a practical level. Experiments with UBI are mixed and often highly biased for and against.

And that’s about the extent of what’s being said about fixing an instantly broke economy, which is also now hopelessly out of date. None of the career path models, life goals, or anything else is likely to work. Generations Z and Alpha are going to be very much on the wrong end of this non-equation.

Now some coy and too-demure questions:

Can’t you think of a use for 8 billion people?

What if you had billions of people working on things that actually need doing?

It hasn’t occurred to you that the engine, chassis, and wheels are failing as well as the brakes? Has the idea of a steering wheel occurred to you?

You can’t see any benefit in freeing up people from meaningless drudge work to possibly productive work that isn’t a direct daily personal insult?

How are you going to get all that debt and all those dud mortgages off the balance sheets? Who are you going to sell to, the dead?

Who pays for what if nobody has any money?

See any black markets, massive inflation, and crashing currencies?

You seriously expect the daily operation of an entire planet to run at all under these circumstances? I’ve said it before – You’ll be lucky if the sidewalks work.

People can’t afford food, housing, healthcare, and education as it is. Somehow a black hole where their lives used to be is better?

AI must be managed on the macroeconomic scale. Management needs modelling and stringent testing. There are no choices.

The Citrini Research report is the GPS for the future and what needs fixing. This can’t wait.

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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

India’s ‘Maharaja in Denims’ stakes claim in AI film race


By AFP
April 15, 2026


Khushwant Singh, author of Maharaja in Denims and co-founder of AI-driven production house Intelliflicks Studios - Copyright AFP Tauseef MUSTAFA

Seema SINHA

Many filmmakers fear the existential threat of artificial intelligence, but in India the race is on to produce the first hit Bollywood feature generated by the technology.

One contender is “Maharaja in Denims”, based on a popular 2014 novel by Khushwant Singh and set for cinematic release this summer.

“There is no actor fee, there is no fuss over them coming late or causing delays. There are no sets,” Singh told AFP.

“It is sheer creativity of mind and the machine,” said the author, who co-founded the startup Intelliflicks Studios with a former Microsoft executive to realise the project.

Indian studios, which churn out more than 2,000 movies a year, have embraced AI — unlike in Hollywood, where it has sparked huge strikes and strict union conditions around its use.

Separate projects in the country, such as the mythological “Chiranjeevi Hanuman: The Eternal” and the Kannada‑language “Love You”, have also been marketed as pioneering AI productions.

Another challenger, “Naisha”, had to postpone its May 2025 release date over unspecified technical issues, according to a social media post from its production studio.

Lightspeed advances in AI image generation capabilities also kept delaying the final cut of “Maharaja in Denims”, the story of a privileged teenager who is a victim of the 1984 anti‑Sikh riots in Punjab.

“You are tempted to use the latest technology, so what was made before didn’t look as appealing,” Singh said.

“But then it also burns cash, because you are spending again for the software.”



– ‘Toughest’ path –



In 2024, Singh and Intelliflicks co-founder Gurdeep Singh Pall, once head of business AI and product incubations at Microsoft, hired a team of six people, including a director and cinematographer, to make “Maharaja in Denims”.

Pall “wanted to experiment with my book”, explained Singh, who is based in the northern city of Chandigarh.

The film’s protagonist believes he is the reincarnation of the 19th century Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh — and traditionally, the movie’s layered timelines and historical settings would demand a massive budget.

But Singh said AI had slashed costs to roughly a tenth.

While the startup has “cracked” the process of AI filmmaking, mythological and science‑fiction films, where characters’ faces are less defined, are far easier to generate than realistic cinema, he argued.

“We chose the toughest… path of realism,” Singh said.

AI models were poorly trained for Indian faces and Sikh historical figures, forcing the team to repeatedly troubleshoot.

A Western movie would be “much easier to generate, because the models are trained for that”, he said.

“Had we known the challenges, we would have picked a different script.”



– Human music –



ChatGPT maker OpenAI has backed the production of a feature-length animation called “Critterz”, created largely with AI tools.

It is aiming for a premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May ahead of a global release.

To retain a human touch in “Maharaja in Denims”, the soundtrack will feature traditional music, with a title song by Indian singer Sukhwinder Singh.

“People in India watch music rather than just listen to it, so it’s best to have it,” Singh said.

Interest is already spreading beyond the film industry, and Singh says he has received emails from wealthy temple trusts keen to commission AI‑generated mythological films.

Despite the hurdles, Singh believes AI will disrupt — and democratise — cinema.

“The way technology is making progress, you will have an 18-year-old sitting somewhere in a village who would be challenging the big guys,” he said.