Oligarchy and Redistribution: A Reply to Paul Krugman

David S. D’Amato

 September 4, 2026

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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman continues his “series on the rise of American oligarchy” this week by discussing “the decades-long dismantling of the system of progressive taxation.” Krugman defines oligarchy “as the extreme concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a small number of people—not the 1 percent, but the .01 percent or even the .0001 percent, the 300 billionaires who made 19 percent of all reported federal political donations in the 2024 election.” He argues that widespread tax avoidance, and accordingly the plummeting of effective tax rates, is largely responsible for giving us a system of oligarchy.

Krugman admits that where he once saw the absurd inequalities of the present day as primarily the consequences of technological change and the market economy, “looking into the math” changed his mind, and it became clear to him that “much of the rise of the modern American oligarchy has been driven by deliberate policy.” The math Krugman is focused on is the tax gap and thus the effective tax rate. The problem for Krugman’s hypothesis is that the United States was already firmly an oligarchy when the tax gap was much smaller and the effective tax rate much higher. Oligarchy is not first and foremost a product of the system of taxation, and it never has been. It is rather a product of the pre-distribution of wealth through state-created special economic privileges.

Though the American “free market” is riddled with these political privileges, they are not well understood or formally quantified. Indeed, they are all but ignored by the economics profession and popular commentary. If we’re trying to address inequalities of both wealth and power—inseparable in practice—through more progressive taxation, then we have already conceded the game, leaving the pervasive legal privileges that create the problem untouched. The mainstream conversation on politics and economics (which some of us prefer to discuss as political economy, precisely because the two are historically and materially inseparable) should work to reestablish careful distinctions between redistribution and pre-distribution.

What economists must begin is the project of formalizing the study of state-granted privilege and quantifying these special giveaways to corporations and the ultra-rich—not only tax credits and other favorable tax treatment, but intellectual property rights, land transfers and eminent domain, professional licensure and barriers to market, arbitrary limitations on civil and criminal liability, and the countless other features of corporate capitalism that have nothing to do with “market forces” or economic freedom in itself. If we began to quantify these in a serious and rigorous way, we would quickly see that capitalism is a system rife with welfare for the infinitesimal billionaire ruling class. It is a system that shifts enormous quantities of wealth upward by systematically restricting opportunities for the popular masses as it creates special prerogatives for our corporate overlords.

Today’s U.S. government is a system of arbitrary administrative rule under the permanent control of interlocking elites in the major corporations and government agencies; this system of discretion under “expert” rule-making is much easier for oligarchs to manipulate than the one contemplated by the Constitution’s three-part structure, under which the people’s representatives are charged with making law. If elected officials don’t actually make the rules or shape public policy toward a level playing field, the common good, and equality of rights under the law, then it matters little or at all who wins any given election. Oligarchy is much easier to create and maintain when it is thus insulated from popular political pressure.

Capitalism is not a free market economy with some minor noise and deviations; regarding the math—the massive gaps of wealth and income and the actual, observable relations of domination and exploitation—capitalism is a continuation of feudalism and mercantilism in a different form, one under which there is intense competition between workers, but strong anti-competitive protections for capital. There is a reason that no liberal of the nineteenth century saw their philosophy as a defense of the capitalist or the capitalist system. Free trade and equal rights were once understood explicitly as a blow against elite, organized, government-aligned economic interests.

Properly understanding and quantifying the pre-distribution of wealth would require that we shift our analytical paradigm: rather than looking only at after-the-fact inequalities of income and wealth, we should also examine the structural rents built into our political and economic system before any taxes are taken. Pre-distribution in this context could be measured by the difference between inequality (and the various inputs, for example, wages, prices, profit margins, revenues, and capital accumulation processes more generally) under current conditions as opposed to a counter-factual situation of actually-competitive markets without special privilege and with widely distributed property.

In the final analysis, Krugman is correct about at least one thing, that what we are witnessing today is the consequence of public policy choices, not any supposedly neutral market forces or technological changes. Even the notion of a natural or pre-political economic system is a profound misunderstanding of historical and social realities. Instead of focusing on the system of taxes and redistribution, what happens after the benefits to capital have already done their job, we desperately need to start seriously examining the structure of the political and legal system that aggrandizes and protects capital at the expense of society at large.

Global Empire as Domestic Policy

by David S. D'Amato | Sep 4, 2026 | 

While many mainstream commentators blanch at the characterization of the United States as an empire, the hard data show that it is today impossible to seriously dispute. The U.S. military operates between 750 and 800 bases around the world, located in around 80 foreign countries and territories. Because there is no fixed or standard definition of “base” for these purposes, there is no accepted number, and some estimates place the figure at closer to 900. The U.S. is also known to operate dozens of secret military bases and black sites, further complicating attempts to settle upon an exact and definitive number.

Just as the number of military bases is disputed, experts have continued longstanding disagreements about how best to tally up total military spending. As the Peter G. Peterson Foundation observed earlier this year, “The United States continues to lead the world in defense spending by a wide margin. In 2025, defense spending by the United States accounted for 33 percent of all military expenditures by countries around the world,” with its nearly trillion-dollar outlay that year exceeding the combined spending of the other six biggest military spenders. This number is down from 2025’s value of nine to six largely because several other countries dramatically increased their military spending (Germany, for example, upped its spending by 24 percent). Breaking Defense reports, “The Pentagon is betting big on a $1.15 trillion discretionary budget request with a further $350 billion coming from the reconciliation process — together adding up to a historic $1.5 trillion defense budget.” The Trump administration’s discretionary funding request of $1.15 trillion marks the first time in history that a discretionary defense request has exceeded $1 trillion on its own. In the previous budget, for FY 2026, the total number hit the $1 trillion mark with a combination of  $848 billion in discretionary spending and $113.3 billion in mandatory reconciliation spending.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) notes that many “obvious examples of programs many would consider ‘military spending’” under commonsense definitions are not a part of the Pentagon budget, including spending for veteran benefits, the Coast Guard, and even nuclear weapons. Looking at five different methodologies, a POGO report published in June points out that all five share at least one conclusion: “Military spending in the United States has long been radically underestimated.” (Not unrelated to this slippery accounting is that fact that the Pentagon hasn’t passed an audit in years, failing its eighth in a row at the end of last year.) This recent POGO report finds that “the true total military budget for the last fiscal year (FY 2025) was significantly higher than $1 trillion: It was likely between $1.5 trillion and $1.8 trillion.” If we count interest payments associated with debts for military spending, then “the range is between $1.7 trillion and $2.3 trillion.”

We rarely consider the domestic political implications of Washington’s globe-spanning empire, yet government spending on war and empire functions as the de facto national industrial policy of the United States, largely determining which cutting-edge technologies receive the most investment, which companies will enjoy massive state-guaranteed markets, and which physical objects will be the focus of the country’s industrial production capacity. Through the military empire, the state becomes both the architect of and primary consumer for a huge industrial sector. And while it has grabbed more headlines this year due to the parlous speculative bubble surrounding AI, the political consequences of the connection between the global military empire and the private sector tech industry remain woefully under-discussed in the mainstream discourse. The federal government is funneling billions to AI companies willing to work directly with the military, overpowering objections from employees and the investor market.

Just this week it was reported that “Palantir’s Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence-powered military platform, is now an official program of record for the Pentagon.” The executive and strategic leadership of major technology companies also increasingly connects and overlaps with the military and national security establishment, often through the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit and liaisons dedicated to recruiting talent and procuring products from the tech sector. As we have already witnessed for decades, cutting-edge technologies developed for the war and empire inevitably end up being deployed domestically against Americans inside the country. Now more than 50 years ago, the Senator Frank Church Committee showed that the intelligence agencies used programs originally designed for foreign surveillance to monitor Americans here at home without warrants. We still have not seriously reckoned with this connection between the policies and technologies of the empire and the ways our own government sees us and governs us.

Since classical antiquity, astute observers have understood that this kind of worldwide military empire is fundamentally incompatible with the rule of law, constitutional government, and even the thinnest definitions of democracy. The administration of such an empire demands secret and centralized forms of decision-making and thus necessarily precludes transparency, accountability, and popular sovereignty. Contemporary political language has managed to disguise what is patently a system of permanent war and empire in the terminology of a liberal and rules-based order of international law and free trade. We have consigned terms like imperialism and colonialism to the history books even as we continue these systems in different forms today. Even the liberal side of our mainstream discourse no longer seriously questions the political system of war and empire that actually governs the country. We will not understand the form of domestic politics we have in the U.S. today until we stop trying to separate it from the imperatives of empire.

Reprinted with permission from CounterPunch.

David S. D’Amato is an attorney, businessman, and independent researcher. He is a Policy Advisor to the Future of Freedom Foundation and a regular opinion contributor to The Hill. His writing has appeared in Forbes, Newsweek, Investor’s Business Daily, RealClearPolitics, The Washington Examiner, and many other publications, both popular and scholarly. His work has been cited by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, among others.

Britain Faces a North Sea Crossroads as Jackdaw and Rosebank Await Approval

By City A.M - Sep 04, 2026

• INEOS Energy chairman Brian Gilvary argues that unstable taxation, limits on new exploration, and regulatory uncertainty have hurt UK North Sea oil and gas investment.
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• Rising decommissioning costs are consuming an increasing share of North Sea expenditure and could soon exceed capital investment.
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• Approval of Jackdaw and Rosebank is presented as an important first step, but Gilvary says that broader fiscal and licensing reforms are necessary to revive investment.
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The impending decision by the UK government over whether to approve the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields will mark a pivotal moment in the history and future of the North Sea. Almost £11bn of private investment waits in the wings, and the outcome of this decision will be a marker of whether Britain can regain its reputation as a serious place to invest in energy.

Approval would send a positive signal, but the issue is far bigger than two projects. Years of policy instability under consecutive governments, restrictions on new drilling and the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) have made it extremely challenging to make a business case for investment, causing capital to dry up.

Accelerating the closure of the UK North Sea does nothing to reduce global emissions. Demand for oil and gas remains, meaning production and carbon emissions are simply exported, starving the UK of valuable jobs, investment and tax revenues. This is damaging our energy security and long-term national wealth.

Let’s call this what it is. This is not managed decline; it is ideological destruction of a national resource owned by the country in the name of net zero.

The decommissioning paradox

Approving Jackdaw and Rosebank will not undo years of damage on its own.

By telling investors for years that the UK North Sea is not a reliable place to deploy capital, operators have voted with their feet, closing fields and redirecting investment. Last month, BP was the latest in a long list of operators to announce that it would be shutting up shop and directing investment elsewhere by announcing that it was marketing its UK North Sea oil and gas business. 

Ironically, much of this investment has been channelled into the very same basin but under a different flag. Norway is now investing roughly 10 times more than the UK in its own continental shelf, and it is even exporting some of that gas back to UK shores.

When investment disappears, fields close earlier and decommissioning is brought forward. The North Sea Transition Authority recently revealed that almost a quarter of all spending in the basin over the next five years will go towards shutting infrastructure down, not building it up. Staggeringly, from 2029 decommissioning spending will overtake capital investment. 

The acceleration of the decline of the North Sea has another important and often overlooked consequence for the Treasury. Companies can offset a significant proportion of decommissioning costs against tax. Premature closures therefore do not simply switch off future tax receipts; they bring the bill forward. 

Current estimates suggest that the combined impact of decommissioning tax relief and lost tax revenues could approach £13bn by 2035. At a time when public finances are already under pressure, accelerating that liability amounts to economic self-harm.

What does stability look like?

Oil and gas will remain part of Britain’s energy mix for years to come. The question is not whether we use these resources; it is whether we produce them ourselves or pay other countries to do it for us.

A decision to allow Jackdaw and Rosebank to proceed would send an important signal about the direction this country will take. However, a green light for both fields alone is not enough. Beyond this, we need a more stable fiscal regime that gives operators the certainty they need to invest, the removal of government restrictions on new drilling, and reform to the EPL. 

The government now has a choice. Responsibly manage a critical natural resource and pillar of the UK’s energy security while protecting jobs and tax revenues. Or accelerate its decline, exporting emissions and increasing imports at a time of global instability, leaving a gaping hole in the Treasury’s pocket.

By Brian Gilvary, chairman of INEOS Energy, via CityAM

Ukraine Pushes U.S. Congress for Russia Sanctions Before Election Recess

By RFE/RL staff - Sep 04, 2026

• The Senate overwhelmingly approved the Russia and Iran sanctions legislation 86-11 on August 7, but its path through the House remains uncertain.
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• Ukraine says tougher tariffs on major buyers of Russian energy could significantly reduce Moscow’s ability to finance its war.
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• House Democrats support stronger pressure on Russia but object to giving President Trump broad tariff and sanctions-waiver authority.
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Ukraine’s top sanctions official says he remains optimistic about prospects for a sweeping Russia sanctions bill in the US Congress despite growing uncertainty over when the House of Representatives will take it up, as lawmakers face a sharply shortened legislative calendar ahead of the November elections.

Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s sanctions commissioner, spent this week in Washington meeting lawmakers and congressional staff as Kyiv presses Congress to advance the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.

The legislation passed the Senate on August 7 by an overwhelming 86-11 vote, reflecting rare bipartisan agreement. The bill would give the president additional authority to impose punitive tariffs on countries that continue buying Russian fossil fuels. It also includes provisions targeting Iran, which Vlasiuk said is engaged in close military-industrial cooperation with Moscow.

But the measure faces a more complicated path in the House, where some Democrats have expressed reservations about provisions that would give President Donald Trump additional authority to impose tariffs.

Republican leaders announced on September 3 that the final two weeks of the pre-election House session are canceled, severely curtailing what had been a full legislative calendar for September.

House members are expected to leave Washington no later than September 17 and not return until mid-November. The House will reconvene for one additional week of business after next week’s Labor Day break.

The compressed calendar has increased pressure on supporters of the sanctions legislation. Senior Republican aides told RFE/RL that the bill remains a GOP priority, provided Democrats “get their ducks in a row.”

Democratic aides, in response to RFE/RL inquiries, expressed cautious optimism about the measure, underscoring uncertainty over whether Speaker Mike Johnson will bring it to the floor.

Vlasiuk: ‘Good Chance’

Vlasiuk said he held roughly 20 meetings with lawmakers and congressional staff during his Washington visit, including discussions with members of both parties.

He said the Ukrainian delegation encountered broad support for increasing pressure on Russia and that no lawmaker told him outright that they would oppose the legislation.

“Everyone agreed that it was necessary to increase pressure on Russia,” Vlasiuk said at a briefing at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. “No one said that he definitely would not support this bill.”

He described Ukraine as “quite optimistic” about the level of support for the legislation, including among Democrats.

One potentially important route would be for the House to consider the bill under suspension of the rules, a fast-track procedure generally used for legislation expected to command broad support. Vlasiuk said that was among the realistic scenarios for moving the bill forward.

“I think that there is really good chance that this bill will be brought onto the floor,” he said.

Vlasiuk has previously identified the week after next as Kyiv’s preferred window for a House vote. With the House calendar now compressed, that period could provide one of the last opportunities for a vote before lawmakers leave Washington.

Asked by RFE/RL whether the momentum surrounding the bill was still there, Vlasiuk pointed to what he characterized as continued bipartisan backing for Ukraine.

“There is a lot of support for Ukraine on the Hill,” he said, adding that Kyiv has been “very vocal” in stressing the urgency of passing the bill. “At the same time, well, I mean, let’s wait and see,” Vlasiuk said.

Democrats Wary Of Trump Powers

The principal obstacle is not broad disagreement over confronting Russia, according to Thomas Melia, a former senior State Department official and Senate Foreign Relations Committee deputy staff director who is currently with the Free Russia Foundation.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Melia explained that Democratic leaders have several reasons for hesitating. One is that the legislation is not strictly necessary for the administration to impose sanctions, he said. Trump already possesses significant authority to sanction Russian individuals and entities.

The bill’s principal value, in Melia’s assessment, is therefore partly political and symbolic: Its bipartisan backing would demonstrate congressional resolve to increase pressure on Moscow.

But Melia said the House Democratic leadership was not sufficiently involved in negotiating the version that ultimately emerged from the Senate.

That concern is particularly relevant to Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who has expressed general support for tougher pressure on Russia but has raised concerns about provisions of the legislation.

There is also a substantive concern: The final version of the legislation gives the president additional tariff authority. Melia said that has created hesitation among Democrats who are wary of giving Trump another instrument that could be used broadly against US trading partners.

Melia also emphasized another change from the bill’s earlier form: The final version makes the sanctions optional rather than mandatory.

That distinction matters, he said, because the original legislation’s political force came in part from its mandatory sanctions provisions and overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate.

After the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, the administration backed a version of the legislation but sought changes that made sanctions nonmandatory and added tariff authority, Melia said.

The result, in his view, is a weaker measure than the original. Melia said the final version nevertheless retains substantial political significance because of the broad bipartisan support that surrounded the tougher proposal.

Kyiv Backs Tariffs

Vlasiuk defended the tariff provisions, arguing that they could make sanctions substantially more effective. “This is a powerful instrument which will allow to amplify the effect of the sanctions,” he said.

He argued that tariffs and sanctions can have similar economic effects but differ in their ability to be circumvented.

“Sanctions can be adapted, sanctions can be evaded, tariffs cannot be adapted or evaded,” Vlasiuk said.

He also rejected concerns that countries could be arbitrarily targeted under the bill, saying the legislation establishes criteria based on purchases of Russian fossil fuels.

In particular, he pointed to China and India, which Ukraine considers central to Russia’s continued ability to sell its energy exports.

Vlasiuk said the pressure could represent “a huge blow” to Russia’s ability to finance its war against Ukraine.

Ukraine also supports the bill’s inclusion of Iran, he said, citing Tehran’s close military cooperation with Moscow.

“Everyone understands how close cooperation is between the military-industrial complex of these countries,” Vlasiuk said. “Therefore, Iran is very well-deserved.”

House Vote Window Narrows

The political stakes are heightened by the House’s decision to cancel its final two weeks of pre-election legislative work.

The chamber is expected to depart Washington no later than September 17, although Republican leaders have said members could be recalled if the Senate advances a party-line budget reconciliation package. That scenario is not currently expected.

Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who has supported the sanctions effort, described the lack of congressional action as a serious failure.

“This is a real shame. It passed 86-11 in the Senate,” Bacon said. “Congressional inaction on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and on Putin’s crimes is a real failure. The history books will not be kind.”

For Kyiv, the urgency is not simply legislative.

Vlasiuk warned that Ukraine faces another difficult winter after months of Russian missile and drone attacks. He said 160 people had been killed in missile and drone strikes in recent months.

“We have to increase the pressure over Russia to make them change their plans, to make them really negotiate,” he said.

He argued that passing the sanctions bill now would have two effects: It could eventually increase economic pressure on Russia, while immediately sending a political signal to both Ukraine and the Russian government.

There is, he said, an element of inertia in sanctions policy. Even after legislation passes, implementing measures can take days, and producing a significant effect on Russia’s economy can take weeks.

“But at the same time, the very fact of passing this sanction bill,” Vlasiuk said, would send a “strong signal of support to Ukrainian people” and a “really strong signal to Russian government.”

By RFE/RL

 

Will We Control AI—or Will AI Control Us?

By Salman Ghouri - Sep 04, 2026

The world is undergoing a transformation driven by the exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI)—a pace of change unprecedented in human history. Consequently, many people fear massive unemployment, along with other implications that could affect their livelihoods and quality of life. Is this truly the case? Yes—or perhaps not entirely.

The purpose of this short article is to explore the potential benefits of AI and its implications for human society. It is still too early to fully assess the potential benefits of AI, but they could be enormous.

A Brief Look Back

History shows that technological inventions have continuously improved economic productivity, efficiency, and quality of life. Many inventions that were once considered luxuries eventually became essential parts of everyday life. Electricity, automobiles, airplanes, refrigerators, washing machines, medical technologies, farming equipment, and countless household devices have all contributed to greater comfort, efficiency, and convenience.

Consider the invention of the typewriter in the 18th century, which transformed business communication. In the 1960s, pocket-sized electronic calculators emerged, followed by computers and laptops. When we were graduate students in the late 1970s, our professors—many of whom had been trained in the United States—would proudly demonstrate regression results generated by computers in seconds, replacing hours of manual calculations.

Did these innovations create mass unemployment? Or did they enhance human productivity and quality of life?

The answer appears clear: they improved our lives. While some occupations disappeared or declined, workers generally moved into other sectors and new occupations emerged.

Modern inventions such as smartphones, the internet, and applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook have made communication instantaneous and inexpensive. They have even reduced the need for travel, allowing people to see and speak with loved ones almost whenever they wish.

Every time humanity experienced a major technological breakthrough, people often believed that we had reached the peak of progress. Yet progress continued—and it will likely continue for generations.

Should we expect the same from AI?

The Rise of AI

AI itself is not new. Its foundations were established in the 1940s and 1950s, with significant advances occurring in later decades. However, investment and development accelerated dramatically in the 2020s, driven by advances in computing, transformer architectures, and large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT.

These systems demonstrate capabilities that increasingly resemble aspects of human intelligence, including language understanding, reasoning, pattern recognition, information synthesis, and, in some cases, creativity. As a result, AI is rapidly becoming integrated into countless sectors of society.

This exponential growth has generated both excitement and concern.

Many fear that AI could lead to mass unemployment, reducing consumer spending and potentially slowing economic growth. Yet history suggests that technological innovation does not necessarily destroy employment permanently. Agricultural innovations increased productivity while shifting labor into other sectors. Industrial automation eliminated some occupations while creating others. Medical advances increased life expectancy and improved human productivity.

The important question is whether AI will follow the same historical pattern—or whether it represents something fundamentally different.

Will AI Be a Game Changer?

Some argue that AI is fundamentally different from previous inventions and could cause widespread unemployment. We cannot realistically stop the development of AI, nor should we necessarily try to. However, policymakers, economists, philosophers, educators, and academics must urgently consider how society should manage its economic, social, psychological, and cultural consequences.

AI is already performing tasks once handled by receptionists, telephone operators, analysts, writers, programmers, and many other professionals. Autonomous vehicles, drone delivery, robotic automation, and AI-assisted decision-making are advancing rapidly.

The potential impact could be far greater than anything we have experienced before.

Consider something as simple as ChatGPT. Ask a question and, within seconds, you can receive an enormous amount of organized information. If you want to improve your writing, you can copy and paste your text and ask AI to edit it. You can ask it to prepare a birthday message, a condolence message, a business letter, or almost anything else you can imagine. In seconds, you may receive several formal or informal versions of your original thoughts.

This is only the beginning.

More sophisticated AI models are being developed for energy forecasting, refinery optimization, environmental analysis, medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, and virtually every other segment of society.

Imagine, for example, a strategic planning department in an oil and gas company. Today, a team of senior professionals may spend months developing forecasting models, key performance indicators (KPIs), business plans, and refinery optimization strategies. In the future, sophisticated AI systems may perform much of this work, perhaps requiring only one or two professionals to supervise, interpret, and implement the results.

The same principle could apply to education.

If AI can provide highly personalized instruction, explain complex subjects, generate study material, evaluate assignments, and assist students individually, will we still need traditional classrooms and large numbers of instructors in their current form?

Perhaps not.

And the same question can be asked across almost every sector.

This is where the unemployment concern becomes much more serious. In previous technological revolutions, displaced workers could generally move into other sectors that were less automated. But what happens if AI simultaneously transforms most sectors of the economy?

Will there be enough new occupations to absorb displaced workers?

It is difficult to know.

Therefore, policymakers must begin thinking beyond traditional economic solutions. If AI significantly reduces the need for human labor, society may need entirely new approaches to income distribution, education, employment, taxation, and social protection.

We may need to think outside the traditional economic framework.

Why AI May Be Fundamentally Different

My assessment is that AI is fundamentally different from many previous inventions.

In the past, we delegated physical labor and deterministic calculations to machines, but we generally did not delegate cognition itself. There were an input and an expected output, and humans understood and controlled the process.

That may no longer be the case.

We are entering an age in which machines can increasingly analyze information, generate ideas, recognize patterns, write, communicate, make recommendations, and perform tasks that once required human judgment.

For the first time, humanity may be developing an entity that could eventually become more capable than humans in an increasing number of intellectual domains.

That is something humanity has never experienced before.

In fact, many of the technological innovations we have adopted in recent years have already incorporated elements of AI, often without us consciously recognizing that we are interacting with intelligent systems.

Consider the devices in our homes. We may ask a voice assistant to play with the white noise or set a cooking timer or ask Siri to do certain tasks. Smart lighting systems automatically turn lights on and off. Irrigation systems can skip watering when rain is detected. Thermostats learn our habits and schedules and automatically adjust heating and cooling to maintain our preferred level of comfort.

Even our entertainment systems increasingly anticipate what we might want to watch.

Have you ever discussed something at home and then opened your phone or YouTube and noticed remarkably similar recommendations?

Whether this results from AI-based recommendation systems, search behavior, advertising algorithms, or other forms of data collection, the broader point remains: intelligent technology has already become deeply embedded in our daily lives.

How AI Models Learn

Consider a simple example.

I recently watched a television segment in which an artist was painting on the street while other playing music. People from a technology company approached the artist and asked how much he earned each day. They reportedly earn approximately $200 daily.

They offered them $500 a day if they would wear special gloves while continuing to paint and play music.

The gloves captured their hand movements and transmitted the data to a computer system. After collecting this information over time, the system could begin learning the relationship between the artist’s movements and the resulting artwork.

Eventually, AI could potentially reproduce similar movements and generate similar images and play similar music.

This is a simple illustration of a much more complicated process.

Developing sophisticated AI models requires enormous amounts of data, extensive computing power, testing, validation, and continuous refinement. This is already occurring in fields such as energy, refinery operations, environmental modeling, weather and demand forecasting, industrial production, agriculture, medicine, and many others.

The more relevant and high-quality data a system receives—and the better it is trained and evaluated—the more capable it can become.

AI: The Convergence of Human Progress

What makes AI particularly remarkable is that it appears to converge with many of the innovations that came before it.

Humanity has accumulated centuries of knowledge about how things work, how products are designed, how businesses operate, how diseases are treated, how energy is produced, how agriculture is managed, and how societies function.

AI has the potential to bring much of that accumulated knowledge together into systems capable of analyzing and applying it at extraordinary speed.

With time, as more data is collected, processed, evaluated, and incorporated into increasingly sophisticated models, AI may become an extraordinarily powerful tool for improving human life.

This is both exciting and frightening.

The Real Danger

The convenience of technology has already come with considerable costs.

Unlike previous revolutions, AI may also challenge the unique role humans have traditionally played in thinking, analyzing, and making decisions. We have experienced that if something is asked for or edited by ChatGPT or any other AI model we generally immediately accept the outcome produced by AI. That’s mean we are compromising our own abilities. Trust me as AI became more advanced we as humans most likely will become slaves of AI and lose our self-confidence and dignity.  

Our memory capacity, for example, appears to be less actively used than in the past. We once memorized telephone numbers, spelling rules, directions, grammar, and other information. Today, we rely heavily on smartphones, search engines, GPS, and digital assistants to store and retrieve information.

Without realizing it, we have become dependent on these technologies—sometimes to the point where we may not even remember our own phone numbers.

More troubling is the potential erosion of independent human thinking.

We increasingly rely on technology for quick answers, analysis, recommendations, and even decision-making. If we stop exercising our own cognitive abilities because machines can do everything for us, those abilities may gradually weaken. I think very rightly Mayor of New York city Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced a one-year moratorium on student use of generative AI in public schools, effective for the 2026–27 school year, affecting nearly 600,000 students in grades 2–K through 8^th. I think it is a good decision and hopefully other States to follow soon.

The danger is not simply that AI becomes smarter.

The danger is that humans may become less capable because they stop thinking for themselves.

A major technological failure, cyberattack, systemic error, or malfunction in a highly interconnected AI-dependent society could have consequences far beyond anything we have experienced before.

Can We Control the Pace?

A moderate and balanced approach to AI development could allow society to adapt gradually rather than react in panic.

But uncontrolled development could create serious risks.

AI is advancing at extraordinary speed; billions of dollars are invested in data warehouses. At some point, its capabilities may exceed our ability to fully understand, predict, or control its behavior.

Science-fiction movies have long imagined machines becoming powerful enough to threaten human civilization. Those stories are fictional, but the underlying question is no longer purely fictional:

What happens when the systems we create become more capable than the people who created them?

We do not yet know the answer.

Perhaps humanity will adapt, as it has adapted to every previous technological revolution. Perhaps AI will become one of the greatest tools ever created for improving human civilization.

Or perhaps we will discover that intelligence itself is the most powerful technology humanity has ever developed—and therefore the one that requires the greatest responsibility.

Conclusion

AI should neither be feared blindly nor embraced uncritically.

Its potential benefits are enormous. It can improve productivity, accelerate scientific discovery, enhance medicine, transform education, optimize industries, improve resource management, and make everyday life easier.

But the risks are equally significant.

The possibility of widespread displacement of human workers, increasing dependence on machines, erosion of independent thinking, concentration of economic power, misinformation, privacy concerns, and loss of human control must all be taken seriously.

The objective should not be to stop AI.

Instead, humanity must learn how to develop, regulate, and use AI responsibly.

The central challenge may not be whether AI will change the world. It almost certainly will.

The real question is:

Will we control AI—or will AI ultimately control us?

Is this how the world ends?

Or will humanity, as it has done throughout history, adapt to a new reality and continue striving for a better and more comfortable life for future generations?

Only time will tell.

And, somewhat ironically, this article was also edited with the help of AI.

By Salman Ghouri for Oilprice.com

Ill Wind or Tailwind? AI is Sweeping the Maritime World

Published Sep 4, 2026 8:20 PM by Pat Zeitler

(Article originally published in July/Aug 2026 edition.)

The winds of the digital age and artificial intelligence seem like a tempest for the marine industry.

For those who are prepared and understand how to properly apply the various types of AI, it's like a magnificent tailwind pushing their fleet ahead and outpacing the competition in ways not previously seen. On the other hand, there will be owners and operators unwilling to shift sails in time to catch the benefits of digitalization and AI. Then it becomes an ill wind.

While it's necessary to maintain a healthy amount of skepticism and not go all-in for every new untested application, the consequences of being the last to properly use AI and the consequent loss of business are too great to risk.

The winds of digitalization and AI are blowing. The old way of operating is now obsolete.

TEAMING UP

Shipowners who have already caught the winds of digitalization and AI have likely teamed up with a partner who can embed AI into their day-to-day operational workflows – like Dubai-based Marcura, whose client list reads like a who's-who of the global maritime business.

Marcura's software solutions keep shipowners and operators ahead of the expected pace of maritime logistics by utilizing AI inside functions like chartering, voyage documentation, port calls and payment workflows. Why comb through contracts by hand looking for certain clauses or provisions – a process that can take hours – when a Marcura solution can find it in seconds by typing in a key phrase?

"In one case a dry bulk operator avoided potential losses of more than $120,000 when the system caught four critical clauses omitted from a draft agreement," states Janani Yagnamurthy, Senior Vice President for Product & Strategic Growth. "Our AI reads the same document in seconds and flags what's missing or risky with citations showing exactly where the problem sits. The same approach runs through operations. That includes automating the conversion of Bills of Lading into Letters of Indemnity, saving the equivalent of three month of operator time a year."

AI agents trained on the industry's largest datasets empower Marcura clients when making critical financial and operational decisions. Tough decisions are always easier to make when backed by solid quantifiable analytics. Marcura products such as CP Optimiser equip junior charterers with the quantifiable analytics needed to make the decisive call with the same level of confidence and efficiency as experienced charterers.

Marcura addresses the use of AI through three principles: applicability, explainability and auditability.

Applicability means ensuring AI is deployed for the right use and within the proper operational context rather than being applied indiscriminately.

Explainability is about ensuring users understand why AI has made a recommendation and the rationale behind it.

Auditability ensures the data is in the proper context and can be vetted in a way that can be easily interpreted by users. With Marcura products, every AI run can be traced and reviewed, giving users the ability to defend their decision.

FORCE MULTIPLIER

Another giant in the field is ABS Consulting.

"At ABS Consulting, we view AI as a force multiplier for technical expertise," explains Olivia Northrop, AI Solution Architect. "Ultimately, AI is a tool, and it's only valuable if it can fix the problems it's tasked with solving."

It's a very similar philosophy to that of Marcura.

"That's why our focus is on applied AI – using it to solve real operational problems by helping to improve productivity and turning large volumes of data and documents into actionable insights," she adds.

A subsidiary of the American Bureau of Shipping, ABS Consulting was founded over five decades ago to provide risk management services to clients in the maritime and offshore energy sectors. Today, it's helping clients harness the AI wind by developing tools that deliver real-world results.

In-house AI capabilities have already transformed ABS Consulting's own internal processes in ways that show measurable improvements in efficiency and better decision-making. ABS is using AI to automate workflows that are repetitive, document-heavy and predicated on data extraction and standardization.

Tasks that in the past necessitated hours of time, AI can do quickly, consistently and accurately, freeing up experts to focus on the needs of customers, not the minutia of the process. Organizations that team up with ABS Consulting benefit from more consistency in output, optimized use of data, scalable digital solutions and faster turnaround times.

Northrop warns that the biggest risk with AI is treating it as fully self-sufficient and not subject to data authentication, sound governance and human review. "Treat AI as a new colleague rather than unchecked automation," she advises. "It needs to be trained and supervised to perform in a trusted and reliable way."

THE LEGEND OF JOHN HENRY

There will be holdouts.

Some AI skeptics are reminiscent of the American folk hero John Henry. The legend of John Henry says he lived in the late 19th century and was unequalled when it came to swinging a hammer. He was the fastest human alive when it came to driving steel through mountains or spikes into railroad tracks. The legend recounts how the owner of a steam-powered drill challenged John Henry in a race to see who could carve a tunnel through a mountain fastest so that railroad tracks could be laid. As John Henry carved out the final piece of the tunnel to win the race, he died of exhaustion, proving that one person can win a battle against progress and technology, but in the end technology moves forward.

Industries and organizations must adapt. They must harness the winds of change.

The Association of Diving Contractors International (ADCI) is one such organization. Founded in 1968, it's a nonprofit association that promotes safety, sets standards and issues certifications for the commercial diving industry. As a commercial diver myself, I know it well.

It's the world's largest trade organization of its kind and has taken a defining stance by digitalizing the diver certification process. As of 2026, the ADCI has teamed up with maritime and dive safety subject matter experts at Skill N Depth to streamline the process of verifying diver credentials. Based in Switzerland, Skill N Depth is a blockchain-enabled, purpose-built platform for the commercial diving and marine contracting industry.

The Skill N Depth digital platform has enabled the ADCI to review, verify and issue a credential within 24 hours – a dramatic improvement over the six to eight weeks required for ADCI staff to manually review the myriad of documentation needed to authenticate each diver's actual qualification level.

It's also being used by dive schools to electronically log dives and by dive contractors to manage personnel data, but the overall intent is to be more than just a diver database. It's a tool that can be used throughout the maritime industry by ship managers, flag states, classification societies and even freelance individuals. Maritime trades like remote access testing and ROV operations can choose to team up with Skill N Depth to reduce administrative burdens, verify personnel more efficiently and mobilize competent teams faster.

"Skill N Depth is more than a digital platform," says CEO Anthony Greenwood. "It's an industry ecosystem and trust network that connects individuals, employers, training providers, certification bodies, medical providers and other industry stakeholders through verified professional records."

ILL WIND OR TAILWIND?

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for organizations that choose the "John Henry route" of resisting progress. Dive and marine contractors who do not embrace digitalization or disregard consensus industry standards will find that their marketability is nonexistent or limited to a customer base that exists only on the margins.

Pat Zeitler is Dive Superintendent at the Orion Group in Houston.

This article appeared in the July/August issue of The Maritime Executive. To read the latest edition of the magazine, go to The Maritime Executive July/August 2026 Ship Management edition. To subscribe to the magazine, please go to https://www.maritime-executive.com/subscribe.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.