It is 2027. AI has not taken over. But tech elites definitely tried to.

They…

• Pitched tech investors to subsidise energy-slurping, aging computer chips.

• Recruited engineers to build out tech to save us from the problems of tech.

• Marketed bots to feed on all the content we share to generate fake content.

• Bribed politicians in a bid to beat China at becoming a surveillance state.

Their tech firms grew by capturing billions of people. Now they turned to extraction: hacking people’s attention and mining their data to manipulate them into buying shit. As tech got shittier, customers got frustrated. They were locked into communicating through tech as middle person (social routing) or substitute (bot pals). Disconnected, lonely people clung to AI to make ends meet. It was useful for rushing out work – no need to click trashy google results or pay a professional. Poor workers looking for an escape gambled on AI, as sophisticated investors dumped AI stocks onto the market.

‘AI’ was the only story left to justify ever-rising stock prices and management payouts. Tech elites funnelled big cash reserves into AI schemes. But as the story lost its grip, elites lost support. Finally, the market crashed.

How the crash happened:

• Investors saw growth in sales slow. They had backed startups that burned more cash as they grew. They hoped to push the costs onto others. Propelled by hype, startups get away with not paying for work or locking customers into monopolies. But AI startups failed to steal work for free, because they kept building costlier supercomputers to process the work (even as the cost per transistor declined fast). Also, creative workers sued for compensation. Rising costs forced companies to raise prices early. Customers could switch to a competing product, so they did. Early investors saw the writing on the wall. They dumped their stocks before others caught on.

• Engineers saw progress dwindle for years – there was little quality data left on the internet, and newer models functioned little better for customers. Engineers got frustrated with their leaders, who had promised to use AI to solve big problems, but instead manipulatively exploited everyone for gain. Then leaders cut their pay and then their job. Distraught, many spoke up. A few became whistleblowers.

• Journalists that hyped up startups now tore them down. The hype cycle turned. Back in 2022, ChatGPT had been exciting and fresh. Later chatbots looked like more of the same. Regurgitating new press releases no longer drew in readers. The juicy stuff was in the scandals, like how leaders okayed shady uses of chatbots to pump up sales. News spread of companies losing billions of dollars on warehouses full of stacks of computers. As the companies failed, and economies fuelled by their spending fell into recession, everyone became clear on who to blame.

• Americans struggled under inflation and stagnant wages. Then the recession hit. In outrage, millions voted out the politicians who took bribes to block regulation. Thousands joined the pro-human resistance. Workers striking for better wages found ways to shut down computers used to make them expendable. Customers boycotted ChatGPT, or rather, cancelled to get something cheaper. Businesses saw customer spending drop, and little gain in productivity, so they cut AI budgets. Many switched to cheap models hosted directly by Big Tech. Facing bankruptcy, OpenAI had to be absorbed more into Microsoft. That became the final trigger.

The crash wipes trillions of dollars in market value. Beliefs in inevitability collapse, revealing the economic wreckage underneath. Accelerationists hide from the media, doomers explain away the mockery, and skeptics go ‘I told you so’ on talkshows.

That leaves the rebels who saw the crash coming, yet believe that the fight is not over. In the faltering AI empire, they see seeds of a threat. A predatory system of extraction from the organic into the artificial. A system that disconnects humans by hooking humans onto machines, dehumanises workplaces by converting expensive workers into the expendable, destabilises free society by totalitarian automation, and destroys slow fragile nature by fast-scaling toxic machines.

Rebels who act to stop the system know that its growth sucks up huge resources, making the global economy crash even more. So they help prepare folks for those windows of opportunity: writing clarifying stories for when people need clarity, connecting groups facing the threat to find paths ahead, and sharing principles for guiding outbursts into passionate movements.

2027 is a year of new hope. Rebels join an unlikely alliance. In the depths of despair, they find the roots of their resistance. To protect human choice, in care for this world. Rebels target the evil tech where it’s still weak. Before the empire can build up again.