MICHAEL ALBERT
AUGUST 5 2026

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So much going on. Existential crises. Fundamental needs. Short and long term agendas. Sounds heard all around the world. Much to think about. Much to do. But does the following also deserve some notice? I think maybe it does.

Truth is under accelerating assault. Trust is dying. Trump lies at every opportunity. Familiar generalized market duplicity persists. Mainstream media pervasively manipulates. But something related somehow simultaneously smaller and larger now grows steadily stronger to also pervert our lives. Something ridiculously trivial yet also savagely scary threatens to turn us all into liars or into people who deem lies by others inevitable. Something that makes us assume fraud is everywhere until we become people who inexorably logically and defensively distrust and reflexively dismiss all other people. We become people who hate people.

Here is a personal example. A few weeks ago I had a new book appear on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Within a few hours of its appearance, I received a solicitation about it. The fancy email displayed knowledge of the substance of my book and of my own history. It offered help. In two days I got ten more such solicitations. What did it mean?

In my case such solicitations were elaborate emails that admired and praised the targeted book and author and that offered to help the book reach its audience for the social good it could do. Eleven such email solicitations in two days. Each with a signature I didn’t know but by people who were seemingly from well known institutions.This was new for me. Well, it was almost new. Such solicitations had actually started to arrive in my email a few weeks earlier, not for the new book—it was not yet out—but for earlier books.

Some solicitations were pretty ridiculous…one early one was signed by Oprah Winfrey who wrote me to say she was choosing No Bosses for her book club selection because of its brilliant and profound message about what to seek beyond capitalism. An early overshoot. But before long more sophisticated solicitations with more accurate information about the new book, more believable writing, and plausible promotion ideas began to arrive.

Amazingly, in subsequent weeks solicitations kept coming and also got steadily harder to easily brand as the scams they were. They had steadily more detailed, accurate, and “professionally” presented information about the book and about me as its author, and their careful, personalized and elaborate promotional plans got steadily more astute.

At first I would read the emails and consider some of the proposals plausible—but not being a total dupe, I would also test them. But it got steadily harder to easily tell or even to discover that they were scams and before long the effort to test and expose each new solicitation, really any such solicitation, took so much time and effort that the best policy became to simply assume every such invitation was a lie that would eventually seek payment or access. So I went from trusting all emails I got, which had been my default stance since email first surfaced, to now routinely not trusting emails.

So what caused this cottage industry of fraudsters to suddenly appear and grow? AI did. AI is used to incredibly quickly find target books and authors, to research both, to write letters and in some cases to field replies and write again and again.

My concern about this trend escalates when I extrapolate from book scams to all kinds of scams that I can’t even dream of. Selling stuff. Offering stuff. Needing stuff. I got an email earlier today, still book related, but offering to translate the new one. Was it real or AI scamming? Then somehow another approach was tried, and I started to receive letters from radio stations and station-related clubs offering visibility. No fee required, I just had to donate. Maybe one or another solicitation/invitation among dozens was real, but maybe not, and molded to now reflexively distrust, I will never know.

The book scams seek payments to deliver promotional aid that then doesn’t get done. Phishing scams look for information to access accounts. What’s new is proliferation and verisimilitude. I received an email two days ago wanting me to enter information to prevent expiration of an actual subscription I have. Two more the next day. Scam inflation.

All of this, again, is fueled by AI which the scammer uses to find targets, to research the target’s needs, to figure out plausible audience for the chosen books or whatever else the scammer proposes, to write solicitation letters with elaborate promotional proposals, to answer replies from the scamee, and so on. Give this cottage industry some more time and it will be making phone call entreaties. Then FaceTime calls. Whooops. Wait. It already does that.

Estimates now claim there are upwards of 2,500 identified scam operations just regarding books and their authors. I suspect there are more or else how could I get so many invites. And that’s just books.

Sometimes the scammer seeks hundreds or maybe a few thousand dollars to be paid upfront for some service or product. Other times they seek critical information so as to clean out bank accounts. I got one about an hour ago saying my Amazon Prime account was being cancelled unless I clicked a provided link to enter new information. Shortly later I got essentially the same approach, but for another account. I was urged to go in and fix the information and of course the email provided a link for the purpose.

The harm that scammers do to their victims is real, very serious, and accelerating, but it is not the harm I am mainly worrying about in this short piece. The personal damage every time a scam succeeds is bad enough, but I have in mind a wider social effect. As scams proliferate so do the domains of life where it becomes wise to distrust communications. So not only lying but also distrust spreads.

The former aspect, to fraudulently steal, is rational for the person who wants to make a buck and sometimes a really big buck—supposing the person has the moral attributes of a weasel. Such scammers have elaborate web sites. They may have phone numbers that when the victim calls connect the victim elsewhere than what the number implies. Such scams are already hard to discern. Imagine a year or two from now.

The latter aspect, to reflexively distrust, is rational to avoid being ripped off. We dismiss all requests, offers, and entreaties. If this continues to proliferate and accelerate the social effects will grow as well. We aren’t what we eat but we do tend to become what we do. And so we slip slide into a world in which truth and trust are each assassinated. But who benefits if we each believe everyone else is a liar? You may think no one does, but no, the best liars benefit, and also all elites benefit because solidarity requires trust which takes a killing blow.

So I think that alongside war, repression, escalating misogyny, racism, and political obfuscation and manipulation, as if all that wasn’t enough, we now have a slowly but steadily growing epidemic of deception that causes good, caring people to assume that everyone else is an exploitative deceiver.

At exactly the moment when we need to grow solidarity we instead turn inward. It turns out that there may be a method to lots of what looks like madness. The state prosecutes immigrants, the poor, and dissenters with great vigor. It searches, labels, and rounds up “its enemies.” Meanwhile fraud-fueled corruption runs free. The state ignores our enemies or even abets them. Regarding scams, don’t punish the perps, but instead protect them all the way from Trump down. Make mistrust “sensible” at every level.

I hate to write anything pointing out ills without suggesting possible paths to win better, but I have to admit I am unsure how to positively react to the observations offered above. To tell people to be smart, to not get fooled, okay—but when that takes the form of don’t believe anyone who seems nice, anyone who seems supportive, anyone who offers you something positive, because fraud is everywhere—then the advice seems likely to aggravate our social trajectory of distrust and atomization. It seems to build in us an inclination to suspect and dismiss at precisely the moment when we most need caring solidarity.

So I am unsure what to suggest. How can we warn people about the growing “quality” of scammers and yet urge people to collectively care about one another and work together? It is clear how a movement can constructively oppose proliferating AI data centers. How does a movement constructively address proliferating AI truth and trust assassins? Soon, of course, some scammers will offer to protect us against other scammers.

Maybe how to deal with truth and trust decay needs a little thought along with what tactics, what organizational choices, and what strategies we should use to stop Trump, stop fascism, stop ecological collapse, stop impoverishment, stop misogyny, stop racism and then to replace the oppressive institutions that give rise to all that?

And P.S. it really is all one fight. Fascism thrives on lies and mistrust. Indeed, fascism can’t live without them. And our American brand of Trumpian Fascism seems to not even believe or have its adherents believe that there is any actual truth at all. How else can we explain that Trump says the things he does despite that so much of what he says is so transparently false?

The Covid vaccine didn’t work. Vaccines cause autism, but hydroxychloroquine worked, and so did ivermectin.

Prescription drug prices are down by 2,000 percent.

Foreign countries pay our tariffs.

Fauci killed millions of people.

Climate change is a hoax.

Wind power caused a massive TV blackout during the Trump-Biden debate.

Solar power is useless because the sun doesn’t shine at night, and batteries don’t exist.

I invaded Los Angeles and now California’s water is flowing.

Portland is on fire, it needs my help.

Every drug boat in the Caribbean ‘kills 25,000 Americans’

Obama, Biden and Comey made up the Epstein files.

Smoke blanketed North America because Canada didn’t rake its 2 million square miles of forest.

Climate change is a Chinese hoax.

We’ve destroyed Iran’s military, and the Iranian regime is begging for a deal.

The economy is in a “golden age.” Prices are down.

I, Trump have a 59 percent approval rating.

I won the 2020 election.

The US is ‘the only country in the world’ with mail-in voting.

I, Trump am a stable genius.

And lately, “my dad was born in Germany” which would be fine except that Trump’s dad was actually born in New York City.

And so on.

Truth becomes whatever Trump or whoever proclaims it to be. Does Trump believe his dad was born in Germany when he says so, and that he was born in NYC when he says that? Truth is apparently whatever the biggest boss says it is.

Duck and cover. Alone. Dismiss everyone. Or what?

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Michael Albert is the co-founder of ZNet and Z Magazine.

From a post by Michael Albert on Counterpunch.org.

Shared via Creative Commons.

Ellen Brown
JULY 16, 2026

Discussions of artificial intelligence typically begin with the question, What happens when the machines take our jobs? For thousands of years, work has been the means by which we fed our families, earned our place in society, and gave structure to our lives. We have come to equate paid employment with identity.

That presumption may soon be obsolete.

When Elon Musk proposed replacing Universal Basic Income with what he calls a Universal High Income—a level of income sufficient for everyone to live comfortably while intelligent machines produce much of the goods and services society requires—critics warned that people would become lazy. They would stop pursuing college degrees, stop starting businesses, stop inventing, stop contributing. Without jobs, it was argued, life itself would lose meaning and purpose.

Interestingly, humanity’s oldest written history begins with the premise that the purpose of humans is to work. The earliest known writing was impressed into clay tablets in ancient Sumer more than five thousand years ago. The Sumerian Atrahasis tablets tell of sky-deities called Annunaki, cast in modern “ancient architect” scenarios as extraterrestrial engineers. The heavy labor required to maintain life on earth was delegated to junior gods called Igigi, who finally grew weary of the arduous work, laid down their tools and rebelled.

The remedy was to create a new being to carry their burden. This was done by genetic manipulation to upgrade the highest life form found here, creating the human species. Whether we read that as history, allegory, or mythology, its underlying message is that humanity was conceived as a labor force – and human civilization begins with a control system to manage the laborers.

The first writing was not poetry or philosophy. It was accounting: grain tallies, labor quotas, rations, obligations. Most of the original cuneiform tablets were administrative records. What began as an exchange system evolved into a money system to control work and the workers performing it. For nearly six thousand years, human worth has been measured by our productivity. We deserve food and shelter because we worked for it.

In many respects, life is still organized around compulsory labor. Writing was devised to organize it. Accounting on clay tablets predated the use of coins, managed by temple priests as intermediaries for the gods. The temple evolved into private banks, with bankers intermediating commerce.

In the 1930s, British economist and philosopher John Maynard Keynes predicted that by the end of the twentieth century, technological advancement would reduce the work-week to just fifteen hours. So why is the forty-hour work week still the norm? It has been argued that our current economic structure uses “busyness” as a form of social containment. By tethering survival to forty hours of corporate or administrative labor, the system ensures that the majority of human creative power is spent serving institutional interests rather than personal or community liberation.

That may be why modern life feels increasingly saturated with what anthropologist David Graeber termed Bullshit Jobs in a book of that name—pointless administrative tasks that serve little social purpose, but that keep people too exhausted to pursue their own interests. He argued that the rise of “fake” work is a political device to keep people from having the free time to organize or rebel. But if artificial intelligence takes over the majority of production, that changes the meaning of work.

From Scarcity to Abundance.

For centuries, scarcity shaped human behavior. Scarcity taught people to guard, to compete, to fear loss. But abundance changes the emotional landscape. What happens if we are simply handed what we need to survive? Skeptics say people will stop working and learning, that society will collapse into idleness, that life will lose meaning without jobs. But pilot studies of Universal Basic Income (UBI) programs involving unconditional cash transfers to recipients show otherwise.

UBI studies from around the world have shown positive results from UBI payments, including higher employment, lower crime, better mental health, higher graduation rates, and little evidence of a retreat from productive activity. Relieved of the constant anxiety of maintaining survival, participants typically pursue education, care for family members, search for better jobs, or start businesses they would not have dared to take on if failure meant destitution. It seems that necessity is not the only mother of invention.

Granted, the payout in most U.S. studies was a marginal $500 or $600 per month, only enough to provide a safety net for basic food and shelter. Plenty of motivation was left to add income for the finer things in life. Studies of the effects of a Universal High Income of $50,000 or more per year have not been done. But many people who are no longer working for pay, either because they are retired or because they have an inheritance or investments to live on, volunteer their time for socially beneficial causes.

Parents devote extraordinary energy to raising children without receiving a paycheck. Volunteers spend countless hours building community organizations. Amateur musicians practice difficult instruments for years with little expectation of financial reward. Scientists have pursued questions that fascinated them long before the result was likely to be commercially valuable. Thousands of programmers worked without pay to develop Linux open source software, and editors work for free to produce Wikipedia, just for reputation, community and the satisfaction of solving hard problems. These activities are not work for wages, but they are work that is quite meaningful to the people engaged in them.

The Enlightenment: Largely the Legacy of the Leisure Class.

The intellectual triumphs of the European Enlightenment—the era that birthed modern science, political liberty, and the social contract—were primarily the domain of a wealthy leisure class, or of talent that was financially backed by institutional support (church, courts, universities) or personal patronage.

Sociologist Thorstein Veblen laid out this thesis in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). He argued that scholarly pursuit functioned as a form of “conspicuous leisure”—a way to demonstrate financial strength by engaging in activities that were “unproductive” in the immediate economic sense. To spend decades debating the nature of sovereignty or the movement of the stars required a measure of “unearned increment” or rent extraction. Examples included:

Francis Bacon (1561–1626): As Lord Chancellor and a member of the high nobility, Bacon’s scientific methodology was fueled by the resources of the state and inherited status.

Robert Boyle (1627–1691): The father of modern chemistry was the son of the “Great Earl of Cork,” then the wealthiest man in the British Isles. His work was conducted as a “gentleman scientist” with no need for professional employment.

Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794): Lavoisier funded the world’s most advanced chemical laboratory through his role as a “Tax Farmer” for the French crown—a position of pure financial extraction.

For those not born into the elite, intellectual survival usually required “aristocratic patronage.” John Locke’s influential work was made possible by his residency and support from the Earl of Shaftesbury, while Thomas Hobbes was a lifelong dependent of the Cavendish family. This system ensured that even “revolutionary” ideas were filtered through the lens of those who benefited most from the existing social hierarchy.

The irony is that the very thinkers who theorized about “universal human rights” and “liberty” did so from a position of security provided by the systems of land-rent and debt-extraction they were analyzing. To create truly universal “liberty” requires a secure income for all.

Non-compulsory Education.

For over a century, schools have functioned as labor factories, designed to produce compliant workers for industrial economies. If labor is no longer the center of life, education must change as well. AI already performs memorization and standardized tasks better than humans, relieving us of the need to perfect those skills ourselves. But that does not mean there is nothing left to learn. Studies of “Self-Directed Education” or “Unschooling” suggest that children are biologically wired to learn, and that removing the coercion of traditional schooling leads not to ignorance but to highly motivated, specialized learners. Self-directed education produces young adults who retain their curiosity and creativity, develop emotional intelligence, and pursue mastery for its own sake.

A 2013/2014 survey of 75 unschooled adults conducted by educational psychologists Peter Gray and Gina Riley found that 83% went on to some form of higher education. Despite not having a high school diploma, they reported little trouble getting into college, often using portfolios, interviews, or community college credits to bridge the gap. A high percentage of unschoolers pursued careers in the creative arts or became entrepreneurs. The researchers reported that unschooling helped them develop the self-reliance and out-of-the-box thinking required for these fields.

A South African study found that while “unschooled” students may have followed non-traditional paths, they often achieved high levels of professional success, particularly in creative and entrepreneurial fields. Intrinsic curiosity replaced extrinsic rewards (grades or job requirements) as the primary driver for learning.

Research on children who learn to read through unschooling shows wide variance in when they start (anywhere from age 4 to 14), but once they decide they want to read, they often reach grade-level proficiency in a matter of months rather than years because they are personally invested. Proponents argue that traditional schooling actually stifles learning by making it a chore.

The Sudbury Valley School model (founded in 1968) is a radical form of democratic education based on the belief that children are naturally curious and capable of managing their own learning. In a Sudbury school, there are no grades or required classes. Instead, students of all ages (5–18) mix freely and decide for themselves how to spend their time. Long-term studies of graduates show that they overwhelmingly transition successfully into higher education and careers, often citing the school’s emphasis on responsibility, self-direction, and democratic participation as the primary drivers of their adult success.

Self-directed learning doesn’t require an independent income, but the point is that the drive to learn and to apply that education to useful pursuits is an inherent human trait, in both children and adults. It’s something we want to do and will do, whether or not an employer requires it.

Self-actualization and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

American psychologist Abraham Maslow conceptualized the needs or goals that motivate human behavior in a clinical review in 1943. He argued that once physiological and safety needs are met, humans naturally move toward “Self-actualization” – the realization of personal potential and pursuit of creative activities. In his later years, Maslow added a level above self-actualization called “Self-transcendence”, where people focus on goals outside themselves (altruism, community and caregiving).

That natural evolution can be applied not just to individuals but to civilizations. As AI and robotics free us from the self-centered needs of survival, we can awaken to our larger purposes of collective actualization and harmonious progress.

Escaping the Welfare Trap.

That’s the promise of AI – that it can free up our time so that we can escape the meaningless “busyness” of paid labor and pursue goals more meaningful to ourselves. But the same digital tools have a darker side. Catherine Austin Fitts and other critics warn that AI could become the ultimate “digital panopticon”—a weapon of entrapment by which programmable money and algorithmic surveillance create a modern “golden cage” in which the right to receive “welfare” is tied to political compliance. The UBI thus becomes a tool of coercion.

The same technology, however, offers tools to avoid that trap. Decentralized, neutral identity systems and zero-knowledge proofs allow people to establish that they are unique humans without revealing personal data. Zero-knowledge proofs are a cryptographic method by which one party can prove to another that a statement is true without revealing any additional information. A neutral protocol is one in which the rules are transparent, fixed, and cannot discriminate against specific users. By using “Smart Contracts” on a blockchain, the distribution of UHI becomes automated. The code only checks if the user has a valid, unique identity proof. It cannot check the user’s political party, criminal record or social behavior (unless explicitly part of the code). A government-issued digital currency could also be generated using the privacy-protected, peer-to-peer models of Project Hamilton and the ECASH bill, as detailed in Part 3 of this series.

Those are political decisions, dependent on a democratic system governed by and for the people. Mandating that these tools be incorporated into any government payments system can ensure that UHI remains a right of existence rather than a reward for obedience.

If AI can handle production, it removes the original justification for compulsory labor. The choice is whether we use AI to automate our enslavement or to finally automate our exit from the Sumerian story, transforming ourselves from a managed labor force into a self-directed, creative civilization.

Rewriting the Human Story.

For six thousand years, humanity has lived inside the Sumerian story: we were created to work for external masters. But AI has brought us to the point where labor no longer must be our master. AI abundance is not the end of work but the beginning of choice, and choice is the beginning of meaning.

Our first choice must be to insist on a democratic government run in the public interest, and a financial system that supports independent endeavor. Freeing humanity from compulsory labor can then provide the freedom for us to develop more fully as human beings.

Some people will create art. Some will teach. Some will explore science, history, biology, or engineering. Some will build communities. Families may simply become more present with each other. For the first time in history, large numbers of people may have the time and stability to ask the deeper questions about the meaning of life and the unique purpose of their own lives.

In the new story that emerges, we can see ourselves not as laborers but as musicians. We can make beautiful music together, but we need the other instruments. An orchestra is beautiful because each instrument contributes its unique voice to a larger harmony. The promise of AI is to free us from compulsory labor so that we can explore our own unique gifts and discover the music only we can play.

Be sure to check Ellen Brown’s earlier posts here on the AI Abundance Paradigm.

Originally published on Scheerpost.com.

Shared via Creative Commons.

JESSICA CORBETT

“We must stand up to the greed of Big Tech and make sure the future of artificial intelligence is a future that works for all of us—not just the people on top.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday argued in an opinion piece for Fox News that artificial intelligence “must benefit everyone, not just a handful of billionaires,” and released a related report warning that AI puts up to 97 million US jobs at risk.

“Some of the very wealthiest people in the world, including Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos—are now investing hundreds of billions into these revolutionary technologies”,  Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote at Fox.

“Why is that? Is it because they want to improve the standard of living of the 60% of our people who live paycheck-to-paycheck—Americans who are struggling to pay for groceries, healthcare, housing, and education? Maybe. But I doubt it.”

“I think it’s because investing in AI and robotics will increase their wealth and power exponentially. The artificial intelligence and robotics being developed by these multibillionaires today will allow corporate America to wipe out tens of millions of decent-paying jobs, cut labor costs, and boost profits,” he said, warning of major shifts within the next decade.

The senator continued:

“Most of us want to see the United States develop a strong, clean, and efficient transportation system—including the production of millions of new cars, buses, and trucks. But, if Musk and others get their way, those vehicles won’t be operated by truck drivers, bus drivers, or taxi drivers. They will be driverless vehicles. Millions of jobs in transportation will be eliminated.

This is not science fiction. It’s already happening. FedEx is using driverless trucks to haul heavy loads along the I-45 Corridor between Dallas and Houston through a company called Aurora. Walmart is using autonomous trucks for short-haul deliveries in Arkansas through a company called Gatik. Kodiak Robotics has partnered with IKEA to conduct driverless deliveries in Texas. Waymo is operating self-driving cabs in Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Austin.”

As the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sanders noted, “I released a report today finding that AI, automation, and robotics could replace nearly 100 million jobs in America over the next decade, including 40% of registered nurses, 47% of truck drivers, 64% of accountants, 65% of teaching assistants, and 89% of fast food workers, among many other occupations. And as bad as that may seem, I am afraid it may be an underestimate.”

The report—The Big Tech Oligarchs’ War Against Workers—takes aim at not only tech billionaires but also their ally in the White House, Republican President Donald Trump.

As Sanders’ office summarized in a statement, the report also found:

• Corporations are already using AI to cut jobs. Amazon, Walmart, UnitedHealth Group, JPMorgan Chase, and other companies are openly telling investors that AI will allow them to slash payrolls—even as they post tens of billions in profits and reward CEOs with pay packages of $25 million, $35 million, or more.
• AI companies admit their goal is to lower labor costs. Firms like Salesforce and Artisan advertise digital labor platforms to “stop hiring humans.” Self-driving truck companies boast that their technology eliminates the “problem” of higher driver wages.
• Trump is making matters worse. The Trump administration has appointed AI executives to top policy roles, gutted labor protections, and even fired tens of thousands of federal workers to pave the way for AI replacement. Trump’s policies encourage corporations to automate jobs while kneecapping unions and worker rights.

Last month, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) unveiled a legislative framework for artificial intelligence, including a bill to create a “regulatory sandbox,” which he said is part of the “AI Action Plan” Trump announced in July.

“Technology can and should improve the lives of working people,” Sanders said Monday. “But it will not happen if decisions are made in boardrooms by billionaires who only care about short-term profits. Congress must ensure that AI and automation benefit workers, not just corporate CEOs and Wall Street.”

Specifically, Sanders is advocating for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay, requiring corporations to share profits with workers and give them seats on boards, expanding employee ownership, creating a US Employee Ownership Bank, enacting a “robot tax” on companies that replace workers with machines, passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, ending union busting, guaranteeing paid family and medical leave, restoring defined benefit pensions, and banning stock buybacks.

“Working people built this country,” Sanders stressed. “They deserve to benefit from new technology, not be thrown out on the street while billionaires get even richer. We must stand up to the greed of Big Tech and make sure the future of artificial intelligence is a future that works for all of us—not just the people on top.”

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First published on CommonDreams.org.

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