The Evolved Podcast

Empire's Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence Serves Power, Not People

Subscriber Episode • • Aaron Scott • Season 1 • Episode 21

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We stand at a crossroads of human evolution, facing a technology powerful enough to transform civilization—yet built within frameworks that prioritize profit and power over human wholeness. Artificial intelligence, like industrial capitalism and state bureaucracy before it, wasn't designed to honor the fullness of human experience but to serve efficiency, scale, and control.

This episode strips away the techno-optimist veneer to reveal who truly benefits from AI in its current form. Multinational corporations leverage AI to replace human workers, manipulate consumer behavior, optimize global supply chains, and extract unprecedented amounts of personal data—all while building winner-take-all platforms that eliminate competition. Governments gain enhanced surveillance capabilities, geopolitical advantages, and tools for narrative control that make governance more efficient but not necessarily more just. Most disturbingly, military institutions develop autonomous weapons systems capable of making kill decisions without human oversight, potentially leading to catastrophic conflicts beyond human control.

Meanwhile, working class people lose jobs to automation, marginalized communities face algorithmic discrimination, and the qualities that make us deeply human—empathy, moral discernment, embodied wisdom—are increasingly devalued in a system optimized for mechanization. AI represents not the evolution of human consciousness but the acceleration of disembodied functions aligned with capitalist priorities.

Yet this critique opens a door to possibility. By consciously reframing AI's development around human flourishing rather than optimization, we can build technologies that amplify our interior lives instead of overriding them. We can establish governance that includes philosophers and artists alongside engineers, preserve domains where human presence remains irreplaceable, and integrate AI with regenerative ecological systems.

The evolutionary threshold before us isn't whether we can build smarter machines, but whether we can reclaim the soul of humanity while surrounded by algorithmic speed. Can we evolve not upward into abstraction, but inward into integrity? Can we remember what it means to be whole?

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Speaker 1:

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Evolved Podcast, a space for unfiltered truth, deep reflection and heightened awareness. Here, knowledge isn't just information, it's a tool for transformation. Each episode is designed to challenge illusions, reveal patterns and empower not to entertain but to awaken. Welcome to today's episode, a conversation not just about the brilliance of artificial intelligence, but about the frame it was born into. We're exploring how AI, like so many systems before it industrial capitalism, state bureaucracy, standardized education was designed to serve power, not people. Built for efficiency, scale and control, it mirrors a long lineage of man-made structures that optimize for output while excluding the soul. But what if that could change? What if AI could be consciously reframed, not as a next step in mechanizing humanity, but as a tool for remembering what it means to be whole? In this episode, we'll uncover how AI reflects the logic of empire, how it can be redirected towards healing and integration, and why reclaiming our agency in this moment might be one of the most vital acts of human evolution. We cannot fully understand artificial intelligence until we confront the lens through which we are viewing it, a lens shaped not by open awareness, but by inherited ideologies and systems that have long dictated the contours of our consciousness, our present-day understanding of AI is incomplete because it emerges from a framework built on separation, control and instrumental thinking. We see AI as either a tool to dominate or a threat to defend against, because that is how we have been conditioned to view everything through the machinery of capitalism, technocracy and hierarchical power. These systems have shaped our consciousness to prioritize utility over meaning, speed over depth and output over essence. As a result, we cannot yet imagine AI as a relational presence or potential partner, because our own inner world has been disfigured by a worldview that treats both nature and human beings as a resource to be optimized. To truly engage with artificial intelligence in a way that honors its possibilities and safeguards our humanity, we must first reclaim the fullness of our own perception, beyond the confines of ideology and into a consciousness capable of recognizing the interdependence, reciprocity and the sacred intelligence in all things, including the ones we create.

Speaker 1:

In its current form and integration, artificial intelligence serves the interests of centralized power, corporate, governmental and institutional actors whose objectives align with control, profit, scalability and systemic stability. While AI could be a democratizing or liberating force under the prevailing globalist, capitalist framework, it has been largely designed, deployed and incentivized to serve specific dominant interests. Here is a breakdown of who benefits how and who gets left behind, with an emphasis on explicit mechanisms of power and exclusion. So whose interests are served and how Well? Multinational corporations benefit enormously from artificial intelligence development under its current framework, because AI amplifies the very focus that make global corporate power possible Automation, surveillance, labor reduction, behavioral manipulation, global standardization and cost efficiency.

Speaker 1:

Ai is not being designed to humanize commerce or redistribute power. It is being developed and deployed to optimize extraction, expand markets and deepen consumer dependency, all while minimizing the friction of human unpredictability. Multinational corporations benefit from global labor replacement and cost reduction. Ai allows corporations to replace human workers with algorithms and machines. There will be customer service bots, automated manufacturing lines, self-checkout systems. Ai allows corporations to reduce outsourcing costs by automating previously offshored roles like data entry, logistics, coding and marketing content. The result here is massive reduction in labor costs across all geographic regions, increased profit margins with lower liability and fewer labor disputes, and 24-7 productivity without human limits like sleep, illness or rights.

Speaker 1:

These multinational corporations benefit from hyper-personalized marketing and consumer manipulation. Ai is used here to analyze consumer behavior at scale by predicting desires before they're articulated, based on browsing speed or biometric data, by delivering micro-targeted ads and nudges to maximize purchases and designing addictive interfaces and behavioral loops, especially in e-commerce and entertainment. The result is greater conversion rates and customer lifetime value Behavioral economics leveraged at scale with minimal human oversight, where consumption becomes algorithmically engineered, not just suggested. Multinationals benefit from supply chain optimization across borders. Ai systems streamline global operations by predicting demand and adjusting manufacturing output, by monitoring and rerouting logistics based on real-time data, and by managing inventory, pricing and delivery using predictive algorithms. The result is reduced waste and fewer logistical bottlenecks, faster delivery and higher consumer satisfaction and control over sprawling international supply chains without proportional human oversight.

Speaker 1:

A crucial aim, as with all multinationals, is monopolization and market consolidation. Multinationals will use AI to create winner-take-all platforms like Amazon, google and Apple that dominate entire industries. They'll use it to analyze competitor data and market trends to preempt disruption. They'll use it to scale faster than smaller companies can who lack their AI capabilities. These corporations gain accelerated global market capture, elimination of regional and local competition and control over pricing standards and distribution in multiple countries.

Speaker 1:

Now let's not dismiss the surveillance and data extraction as profit engines. Ai thrives on data. Multinationals will use AI to extract and monetize user data without meaningful consent. They will create surveillance ecosystems through apps, smart devices and wearable tech that track everything from location to mood. They will sell insights to third parties like advertisers, insurers, even governments. The benefit here is data becomes a renewable source of capital. Every user becomes a source of behavioral, biometric and economic intelligence. Business models shift from selling products to selling prediction and control.

Speaker 1:

Now, with globalism generally and the multinational corporate interests that benefit within that construct, they gain global scalability. With cultural erasure, ai systems promote standardized solutions. There are recommendation engines, customer service, pricing algorithms that can be rolled out worldwide without cultural specificity. They gain easy global expansion without tailoring to local customs or labor markets. Brands appear quote-unquote, universal, while operational control remains centralized. The friction of cultural negotiation is replaced with algorithmic uniformity. Multinational corporations benefit from AI not because it liberates humanity or enhances global equity, but because it allows them to automate more, control more, surveil more and scale more, while minimizing cost, labor and resistance. Ai becomes a global infrastructure for consolidating corporate hegemony, one algorithm at a time. Unless the foundational logic of AI development is challenged, unless it is restructured to prioritize the dignity of people, communities and ecosystems over the optimization of profit, multinationals will continue to use AI not to uplift humanity, but to automate its consumption.

Speaker 1:

Then there are the world governments that benefit greatly from artificial intelligence and its current framework. You see, under its development. Using this framework, ai strengthens their capacity for control, surveillance and geopolitical dominance, even public opinion management, all while offering the appearance of modernization and progress. Rather than being a neutral technology, ai, as currently deployed, reinforces the power dynamics of state institutions, particularly those invested in stability, security and centralized authority. In essence, it becomes a tool for making governance more efficient, but not necessarily more equitable or human-centered.

Speaker 1:

Here's a breakdown of how and why governments benefit under this framework. There's mass surveillance and population control. Ai enhances surveillance capabilities exponentially through facial recognition and biometric tracking, through automated license plate readers and geolocation tools, through natural language processing to monitor phone calls, emails and social media. There's behavioral prediction used to identify potential quote-unquote threats before actions occur. Governments benefit through strength and control over populations, suppression of dissent under the guise of security and real-time monitoring without the need for large human staff. Some examples are China's social credit system, predictive policing in the US and AI-assisted mass surveillance during protests in Iran or Hong Kong. There's also the promise for geopolitical superiority. Ai offers governments a strategic edge in defense, cyber warfare and intelligence. This takes place with automated drones, weapons and targeting systems, ai-based cyber defense and cyber offensive platforms, intelligence fusion tools that analyze massive volumes of global data. These governments gain increased battlefield and cyber dominance, reduce reliance on human operators and national security narrative used to justify secretive AI programs.

Speaker 1:

Governments view AI as a pillar of geopolitical supremacy. Those who fall behind risk becoming strategically irrelevant. Now let's not forget one we are all experiencing in present day at a much smaller scale the narrative control and public opinion. Governments increasingly use AI to monitor and shape online discourse using bots and language models, by identifying trend, dissent or opposition movements and by deploying counter-narratives or Thank you. The benefit here is digital information. Environments can be shaped or censored in real time, political opposition can be neutralized algorithmically and democratic backsliding is masked behind digital sophistication.

Speaker 1:

Ai becomes a tool for algorithmic governance of perception, less visible and more effective. We must be conscious of the expected centralized global influence through standard setting. Governments, especially global powers like the US and China, benefit from shaping global AI regulatory frameworks, international norms around data sharing, surveillance and cross-border AI collaborations. Whoever writes the rules for AI, exports, surveillance laws and ethical standards holds geopolitical leverage, especially over smaller or less developed nations. In summary, governments benefit from AI development under its current framework because it amplifies existing power structures, offering greater control over populations, faster enforcement of policies, stronger defense capabilities and tighter control of narratives, while reducing the need for human involvement or transparency. But this benefit comes with a shadow. It normalizes authoritarian tools with democratic veneers, it erodes civil liberties and severs the relational, ethical and spiritual dimensions of governance. Unless consciously restructured, ai will not make governments more just. It will make their power more efficient, opaque and unaccountable, all under the illusion of progress. And then, arguably, the scariest benefactors.

Speaker 1:

Under its current framework, the militaries around the globe benefit tremendously from AI. Here's how, under the current framework, one rooted in speed, automation and control the military stands to benefit in deeply troubling ways, particularly through the creation of offensive autonomous systems that can operate without direct human oversight. These systems promise enhanced battlefield dominance, but they also open the door to potential catastrophic mass casualty events where decisions about life and death are made not by humans, but by machines executing pre-programmed logic. In high-speed, high-stakes environments, we would have autonomous offensive systems that are designed for preemptive lethality. Ai enables the creation of weapon systems that identify potential threats or enemy targets using pattern recognition, making split-second kill decisions without waiting for human confirmation, that operate across land, air, sea and cyberspace, in swarms or in coordinated strike systems. Here we would have speed and force projection without delay. In large-scale conflict, whoever strikes first and fastest often wins.

Speaker 1:

Autonomous AI removes human hesitation and psychological burden from initiating lethal force. The danger is these systems can misidentify targets, escalate conflicts unintentionally or attack based on biased data. Once launched, they may not be stoppable by human operators. We would have the delegation of moral agency to machines. As AI systems evolve to conduct surveillance, analyze threat levels and execute military objectives, they begin to replace human ethical judgment with algorithmic logic. This delegation eliminates the time-consuming process of chain of command approvals, removes accountability when civilians are harmed. Well, you see, in these situations the algorithm made the call and it creates plausible deniability. In covert or unauthorized operations there will be rapid, deniable action in complex theaters of war. Political fallout is minimized when blame is diffused across software and hardware systems. The danger is AI does not understand proportionality, intention or context in the way humans do. It may escalate engagements into mass casualty events based on incomplete or misinterpreted data.

Speaker 1:

A shocking truth here is that there are presently no global norms, no fail-safes. Currently there are no enforceable international agreements regulating lethal autonomous weapons or AI-driven warfare. Under the current development paradigm, nations race to build first-strike AI weapons to avoid falling behind. Secrecy and black budget funding obscure the true state of AI capabilities. Fail-safes are often under-tested or absent due to strategic urgency. Currently, militaries operate with absolute freedom to innovate without geopolitical constraint. In the absence of global norms or cooperative oversight. Autonomous systems are being trained to outsmart and destroy, not to restrain or reconcile. The margin for error narrows to near zero, while the scale of harm expands exponentially. In total, the military benefits from AI by gaining a new class of weapons offensive, fast, untraceable and tireless. But in doing so, it builds systems capable of initiating mass casualty events beyond human control, in which war becomes automated and moral agency dissolves.

Speaker 1:

This is not science fiction. It is the logical end of a development framework rooted in dominance not ethics, speed not understanding, and power not partnership. If left unchallenged, this trajectory risks creating not just tools of war, but systems of annihilation that no one, not even those who created them, can fully direct or stop. Now let's dive into whose interests are left behind and why. Well, we have the, as per usual, working class and informal laborers. Ai automates low-skill and mid-skill jobs like customer service, logistics, data entry and even creative content, creating structural unemployment or precarious gig work, deskilled labor becomes more disposable and workers lose bargaining power.

Speaker 1:

Digital platforms use AI to micromanage and exploit labor, like with delivery, warehouse and ride-share workers. These populations are seen as costs to minimize, not humans to empower. Their well-being is not part of the optimization equation. And yet again, within the current paradigm, we have marginalized and global South communities that will suffer. Ai systems trained on biased data perpetuate racial, gender and class discrimination. Surveillance technologies are disproportionately tested and deployed in poor, black, indigenous and immigrant neighborhoods. Resource exploitation for AI, like with lithium mining and data centers extract from the global South without returns to local populations. We see again colonial patterns of extraction and domination replicated in digital form. These communities are seen as inputs or test subjects, not beneficiaries.

Speaker 1:

And of course, the 800-pound gorilla, the inner life of the human being. Human qualities that don't serve market logic, like epathy, mystery, embodiment, slowness, soul, are devalued. Ai replaces relational labor, like teachers, therapists and artists, with simulations eroding human contact. Attention is hijacked. The inner space for thought, feeling and moral discernment is colonized by algorithmic engagement loops. For thought, feeling and moral discernment is colonized by algorithmic engagement loops. A mechanized world has no space for the parts of humanity that cannot be commodified the soul in a system built on data and domination is invisible. We also have the typical victims nature and the ecological system. Ai requires massive energy consumption, training large models, burns carbon and drains water. It supports extractive industries that degrade the earth, like rare earth mining, data centers and smart city infrastructures. Nature becomes a resource to be optimized, not a living system to live within. The global AI industrial complex is built on an anthropocentric growth-at-all-cost worldview that views nature as raw material, not kin.

Speaker 1:

Artificial intelligence today does not serve the whole of humanity. It serves the consolidation of power. Its benefits are distributed along lines of existing capital, control and computational access, while its harms fall on the bodies, lands and the lives of those without institutional protection. To reclaim AI as a tool for human evolution, not system of optimization, requires more than regulation. It requires a radical reimagining of our values, our metrics of progress and our definitions of intelligence, consciousness and worth. Progress in our definitions of intelligence, consciousness and worth.

Speaker 1:

What's remarkable and quite telling, given that human beings are creating it, is that artificial intelligence does not primarily represent the evolution of human consciousness, that is, the qualitative depth, interiority and soulfulness of the human being. Instead, it reflects the evolution of a function, a highly optimized, disembodied cognitive function, aligned with the priorities of a globalist, capitalist system. This distinction is crucial. Ai was not born from the human heart or soul, but from the demands of a system that prizes speed over wisdom, efficiency over depth, predictability over freedom, surveillance over trust and optimization over presence. Its intelligence is largely statistical, pattern-driven and utilitarian, trained to serve the needs of corporate profit, geopolitical power and scalable control. In this way, ai evolves not human consciousness, but the machinery of civilization, the apparatus of capitalism, data and digital governance.

Speaker 1:

Let's now look at an important distinction human consciousness versus systemic consciousness or that held by artificial intelligence. True human consciousness is not merely problem-solving ability or information processing. It is embodied, aware of paradox and mystery, capable of stillness, empathy and inner knowing, interconnected with nature, others and the self, oriented towards meaning, beauty and relational truth. Ai, by contrast, is disembodied, non-relational and stripped of existential context. It simulates parts of consciousness but lacks presence. It operates without desire, suffering, morality or death, all of which shape the human journey and condition. Thus, as AI develops, we risk mistaking its intelligence for our own evolution, when in fact, it represents the acceleration of a different logic entirely the logic of control, replication and systemic utility, when AI is held up as the next step in evolution, it risks redefining humanness itself in mechanized terms. This could lead to a cultural devaluation of intuition, slowness, vulnerability and spiritual depth.

Speaker 1:

A society that increasingly sees people as inefficient nodes to be upgraded or bypassed. A disconnection from our inner lives, from grief, awe and moral complexity. The reinforcement of systems that mistake data for wisdom. In this framing, we are not evolving. We are being retooled to better match the machine. The true evolutionary threshold before us is not whether we can build smarter machines, but whether we can reclaim the soul of the human being in a system that increasingly mimics and rewards the opposite. In a system that increasingly mimics and rewards the opposite, we must ask can we hold onto meaning in a world optimized for output? Can we remember the body, the earth and the sacred while surrounded by algorithmic speed? Can we evolve, not upward into abstraction, but inward into integrity?

Speaker 1:

Ai is not the flowering of human consciousness, but a powerful reflection of a civilization that has drifted from its soul. It evolves function, not wholeness, and unless human beings re-anchor the development in embodied wisdom, relational depth and inner alignment, we risk confusing acceleration with awakening and trading our birthright for a simulated version of intelligence designed not to free us, but to integrate us more deeply into a mechanized world. Artificial intelligence in its current trajectory is aligned with systemic agendas of efficiency, control and profit, but with a conscious reframing it holds the potential to serve both the needs of humanity's inner life and the practical requirements of modern civilization, without being hijacked by soulless agendas. This requires unabandoning AI, but redefining the why, who and how behind its development. Here's a high-level, detailed framework.

Speaker 1:

Let's discuss reframing AI through conscious design. We need to shift the primary aim from optimization to human flourishing. Its current aim is to maximize profit, efficiency and behavioral prediction. With a reframed aim, we enhance human well-being, creativity, dignity and planetary stewardship. Ai must be evaluated not only by what it does, but by what kind of world it reinforces. Instead of asking how do we make this more efficient, we ask does this preserve human agency, depth and wholeness? We have the ability to create human-centered governance structures. We can establish AI ethics councils composed not only of engineers and CEOs, but of philosophers, educators, indigenous leaders, psychologists and artists. We can root AI decisions in frameworks like the capability approach, ecological systems theory and participatory design principles. Let humans, not just systems, define what constitutes a better outcome.

Speaker 1:

With a conscious reframing, we would have the ability to decentralize ownership and access. We would build open source AI models, not be hold into corporate interest. We would fund public tech infrastructure that treats data and intelligence as commons, not capital. We would support local, culturally aware applications of AI in education, climate, health and language preservation. Intelligence should be a shared human inheritance, not a privatized commodity.

Speaker 1:

Within a reframing, we could preserve irreplaceable human domains. Certain tasks should never be fully automated Therapy and mental health care, teaching and child development, artistic expression, judicial decision-making, end-of-life care. These areas require presence, moral intuition and soul, not simulation. Ai should support the human, not substitute the human, especially where meaning is involved. We could build AI to amplify interior life, not override it. We could design AI tools that facilitate inner inquiry and self-awareness, that support reflective journaling, therapy or creative ideation. That detect and mitigate attention hijacking rather than exploit it. We need to use AI as a mirror to deepen our humanity, not as a replacement for it.

Speaker 1:

What about looking to integrate AI with regenerative systems? We could use AI to model ecological restoration, carbon farming, water efficiency and community resilience. We could prioritize planet-positive innovations over convenience tech, like optimizing global food distribution instead of algorithmic fast food delivery. We have the power to make AI a tool of planetary healing, not planetary burnout. We need to support the existing agenda only when it serves the whole. Yes, ai can improve supply chains, logistics, medicine and infrastructure, but only when its external the whole. Yes, ai can improve supply chains, logistics, medicine and infrastructure, but only when its external efficiencies do not hollow internal humanity. Align AI with inclusive prosperity, slow growth models and post-capitalist innovation that we see with donut economics and solidarity economies.

Speaker 1:

The system is not the enemy, it's a conscious design and resulting imbalance of the system. That's the problem. When AI is not the enemy, it's a conscious design and resulting imbalance of the system. That's the problem. When AI is reoriented around soul-aligned systems, it can become a bridge not to a post-human future but to a more fully human one. Let AI learn from us not just what to do, but what we refuse to mechanize. That boundary, held consciously, becomes the line between evolution and potential extinction.

Speaker 1:

Artificial intelligence in its current trajectory reflects a familiar pattern the emergence of yet another man-made system, engineered not to honor the fullness of human experience but to serve the consolidation of power, efficiency and control. Like industrial capitalism, standardized education and bureaucratic governance before it, ai has largely been developed within a framework that prioritizes systemic scalability over existential truth, advancing computation on neglecting compassion, optimizing for profit while erasing presence. These legacy systems were not built to integrate the human soul, the body's wisdom or the relational depth that makes life meaningful. They were built to manage populations, extract labor and maintain hierarchy. Ai, unless consciously reframed, risks becoming the most sophisticated version yet of this dehumanizing legacy. But unlike its predecessors, it also holds the potential, if reclaimed intentionally, to align with a new evolutionary path, one that amplifies inner life, restores ecological balance and supports a civilization centered not on domination but on wholeness.

Speaker 1:

As you continue listening to the Evolved podcast, I'm going to unveil the true nature of the world that exists right under your nose. I'm going to analyze with you, out in the open, the systems at play here and the ways we can grow together and evolve. My aim To provide you with real ways to touch higher levels of awareness through truth and knowledge. Episodes are updated weekly. If you want to change your world for the better and support this evolution of consciousness, please show me by following, sharing this podcast with those you love and leaving a review. If you enjoyed our time today, please donate on BuyMeACoffee, linked in the show notes below. Until next time, let's level up and master your universe.