{"id":636535,"date":"2026-10-20T18:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T18:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/636535\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T18:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T18:16:13","slug":"the-dangers-of-letting-tech-billionaires-shape-our-world-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/636535\/","title":{"rendered":"The dangers of letting tech billionaires shape our world | Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I\u2019m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian, writing to you while sitting in front of Roy Lichtenstein\u2019s monumental Drowning Girl, on view in New York City<\/a>. Today in tech, we\u2019re discussing the perils of Elon Musk\u2019s one-man global infrastructure, AI-generated music and a Guardian AI conference in Paris.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk\u2019s orbital ownership<\/p>\n

Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX is the single largest satellite operator in the world, larger than any government space bureau. The life-threatening consequences of that dominance and centralization of power are on full display. One man is in charge of global, vital infrastructure, which is thumbing the scales in the war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s internet service was throttled in Ukraine amid a series of devastating attacks by Russia last week, leaving the country extremely vulnerable. The US government controls StarShield, the satellite internet service produced by SpaceXSI for the Pentagon, which is what Ukraine relies on. Objects moving faster than 100mph (161km\/h) \u2013 drones, the centerpiece of Ukraine\u2019s counteroffensive \u2013 lost connectivity. The sudden restrictions Tuesday evening led to the failure of several Ukrainian combat missions<\/a>. Russian drones fly at nearly 200mph (329km\/h), so Ukrainian interceptor drones can\u2019t catch them without Starlink, and no alternative is as yet viable. In response, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, warned \u201cpeople will die.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cutoff comes alongside Donald Trump\u2019s mercurial souring on Ukraine<\/a>. Pressured domestically by the high price of diesel and upcoming midterm elections, the US president has eased sanctions on Russia, and Zelenskyy has said US intelligence agencies on several occasions in recent days didn\u2019t warn Ukraine of incoming missile attacks, as they usually do. Musk has denied his own involvement in StarShield\u2019s malfunctioning, writing, \u201cThis is not under SpaceX control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/a> reported that the request to throttle the service in Ukraine came from the White House. Responding to the claim, Trump said: \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was anybody because it wasn\u2019t me, and I don\u2019t think it was Elon. And from what I understand, it\u2019s the same as it\u2019s always been.\u201d The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said \u201cno one at the White House ordered anyone to slow down the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: What is Starshield, SpaceX\u2019s military-grade Starlink system, and how will its restriction affect Ukraine?<\/a><\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s denial has been met with skepticism given his close ties with the administration. It is impossible to disentangle him and SpaceX<\/a> from the Trump administration. He has realigned himself with the White House in recent months, patching up his explosive feud with the president from a year ago and appearing with Trump at major events. Musk has been appointed to a Pentagon commission on the future of war and has given hundreds of millions of dollars to conservative Republican candidates.<\/p>\n

Musk has also personally ordered the restriction of Starlink service in Ukraine before. In 2022, SpaceX cut off Starlink \u2013 not StarShield \u2013 service during a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the regions of Kherson and Donetsk. He refused Ukraine\u2019s request to extend connectivity to Crimea the same year.<\/p>\n

One tech tycoon\u2019s political leanings are determining the tides of war between two sovereign nations. Musk\u2019s alliance with the White House implicates him in the pressure campaign against Ukraine to end the war with Russia, likely via surrender.<\/p>\n

Artists and fans reckon with AI-generated music\u2018If somebody does a totally AI-generated song where all they did was prompt something, then I think that\u2019s their thing. But who am I to say what\u2019s standard and what\u2019s not?\u2019 Photograph: Krisanapong Detraphiphat\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, notable musicians have confronted the growing presence of AI-generated music, saying they are open to it but wary, even boosters like the singer and producer Grimes<\/a>, former paramour of Musk and mother to three of his 14 children.<\/p>\n

Fans, by contrast, are voting with millions of streams against artifice in music. Songs and albums harkening back to analog instrumentation are dominating the Billboard charts, no futurism wanted.<\/p>\n

Both A$AP Rocky, rapper and partner to Rihanna, and Grimes took the same position: I accept AI-generated music, but I don\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prefer to do things myself, practically,\u201d A$AP Rocky told Billboard<\/a>. \u201cIf somebody does a totally AI-generated song where all they did was prompt something, then I think that\u2019s their thing. But who am I to say what\u2019s standard and what\u2019s not? I\u2019m just doing me out here, and I\u2019m doing my music practically \u2013 the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grimes, one of my own favorite musicians, has begun promoting her first new album in six years, Psy Opera, which she described to the Paris Review<\/a> as capturing the \u201cemotion of being thrust into the future\u201d. Stereogum<\/a> described the album as \u201cAI-inspired but not AI-generated\u201d, citing Grimes\u2019s own insistence that her team of 70 be credited rather than reduced to machines.<\/p>\n

Grimes offered a free license of her own voice to AI enthusiasts to make what they would three years ago. That she declined to generate her own music indicates that, even to a futurist like her, AI-generated music is lacking, similar to Rocky\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n

I have also found myself listening to an AI-generated song, Bomboclat Wallahi, brought to my attention via frenetic<\/a>, overstimulating videos<\/a> on Instagram. Despite the song\u2019s comical sonic maximalism, it lacks any staying power. Listening to it the day after I first heard it left no impression, similar to the way low-quality food leaves me hungry again just a few hours after eating. \u201cSlop\u201d is still the best word to describe AI-made content.<\/p>\n

In contrast to artists\u2019 nuanced stances, fans are making their position on tech-made music clear: they don\u2019t want it. Billboard\u2019s charts<\/a> of the most popular albums and charts of the past week showcase a preference for music without obvious modification. Songs and albums that feature a simple voice-and-guitar arrangement are dominating. On the Top 200 album charts, most of the Top 10 albums foreground a singer over analog instrumentation \u2013 Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Ella Langley\u2019s Dandelion, Olivia Dean\u2019s The Art of Loving, Taylor Swift\u2019s The Life of a Showgirl, Noah Kahan\u2019s The Great Divide and Stick Season, and Morgan Wallen\u2019s I\u2019m the Problem. In the Hot 100 singles chart, the top four songs bear the same sonic signatures: Swift\u2019s Patient Zero, Langley\u2019s Choosin\u2019 Texas, Stella Lefty\u2019s Boston, Wallen\u2019s Been by Now.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, The Beatles\u2019 Rubber Soul, released in 1965, also makes an appearance at No 4 on last week\u2019s Billboard rankings. Some listeners want to return to a time when producing music with artificial intelligence wasn\u2019t even an option.<\/p>\n

Be more human: how to resist the creep of AI\u2018We decide that we want to be more human.\u2019 Photograph: Marcela Barsse\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

My colleague Robert Booth reports from the Hacking Big Tech conference, a Guardian conference in Paris:<\/p>\n

As the Paris Streets erupted with protest and violence on Saturday, a parallel radicalism was on display at the Hacking Big Tech conference organised by the French media organisation Mediapart in conjunction with the Guardian. Amid the contributions from experts in military AI and how to fight against datacentres, a theme emerged about how people might respond to the tech wave: be more human.<\/p>\n

The writer Naomi Klein told the audience that the technology companies intend AI to be used as an \u201ceverything app and also as a truth machine\u201d. This, she said, was \u201cvery clearly a fascist idea, to centralise knowledge, to standardise what intelligence is\u201d.<\/p>\n

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At a rare tech conference not addressed by representatives of tech companies, Klein painted a bleak AI-driven future in which there is \u201cgoing to be more resource scarcity, there\u2019s going to be more people who have no role in the economy and need to be contained and surveilled\u201d.<\/p>\n

A response was available, she said: \u201cWe decide that we want to be more human.\u201d<\/p>\n

Humour was another answer. German Salazar, a Chilean activist campaigning to save water in his native country in the face of a wave of AI datacentres, showed how his community had set up a human chatbot to encourage people to prompt less and save water. The idea was simple: a team, ranging from children to town elders, offered human responses to chatbot queries from anywhere in the world for a day. If you want an image of a dog doing yoga, one of them will paint it for you. Want to know what love is? A human will tell you it is \u201cthe wish of someone else to be happy\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were 2,300 requests for images, 135 for dating advice and one for the meaning of life.<\/p>\n

Read more: AI threatens democracy. But we are not powerless: here\u2019s how to fight back<\/a><\/p>\n

The wider TechScape<\/p>\n

Tool and target: US law enforcement grapple with AI-enabled terrorism and anti-tech extremism<\/a><\/p>\n

Apple unveils new smart home devices that showcase upgraded Siri AI<\/a><\/p>\n

Companies rushed in on AI. Now some are pulling back<\/a><\/p>\n

Outrage after Meta suspends No Kings Instagram account during protests<\/a><\/p>\n

How to dress a tech oligarch: The Social Reckoning\u2019s costume designer on Zuckerberg\u2019s style evolution<\/a><\/p>\n

Elon Musk reveals \u2018world\u2019s first flying car\u2019 at Tesla event<\/a><\/p>\n

Inside the long, bitter fight over one man\u2019s quest to build the biggest AI datacenter in California<\/a><\/p>\n

Tech money is dominating the US elections<\/p>\n

The ultra-rich are spending one million dollars a day fighting California\u2019s proposed billionaire tax<\/a><\/p>\n

Elon Musk becomes biggest donor of US midterms cycle with $366m spent<\/a><\/p>\n

AI viruses<\/p>\n

AI in your oven? Anthropic warns models \u2018months away\u2019 from self-replication on smart devices<\/a><\/p>\n

What are self-replicating \u2018AI worms\u2019, and why is Anthropic worried about them?<\/a><\/p>\n