Not long ago, authorities in Russia approved a decree requiring all new devices to come pre-installed with a state-sanctioned messaging app “linked to government services.” This came alongside a broader ban on several Western apps—most notably those under Meta, as well as Telegram.

While it’s true that I’m not particularly fond of the excessive power corporate entities hold over vast swaths of data, I find this precedent incredibly dangerous—yet I doubt our own governments would take a different path. The fact of the matter is that the immense power unlocked by the amalgamation of information—gathered by various interests—will only make the pursuit of digital sovereignty increasingly attractive.

Concepts like “Fortress Europa”—once nearly unthinkable in a world supposedly driven by cooperation—are quickly trending, fueled by economic uncertainty and scarcity-driven logic flooding the public discourse.

As it stands, the eventual merging of these systems with AI capable of executing near-ungodly levels of state control feels like a matter of time—perhaps just months, in the right dystopian scenario. From there to Orwell’s doublethink? Probably no more than ten years.

The reality is, humans as a species aren’t particularly wired to embrace freedom as a core value. Constant competition—now inflamed by economic warfare, disrupted supply chains, and battles for informational control—only reinforces that.

If geopolitical theory has taught us anything, it’s that this kind of terrain is more than fertile for international conflict (internal conflict too). Personally, I don’t think our Doomsday Clock should be overly concerned with nuclear war—after all, the fundamentals of warfare haven’t shifted much with our current wave of technologies, and ruling over ashes is still unappealing—even to the most unhinged of dictators.

No—the greater danger lies not in all-out war, but in the creeping loss of freedom through communal brainwashing and personality cults. It’s the rise of deranged figures more interested in building their own private churches than in improving the lives of their people.

As it stands, we already have more than enough technological means for a madman to try and take over the world. The old methods still work just fine for that purpose—and the growing apathy or outright contempt younger generations show toward the very institutions that stand between us and these threats (like politics or the armed forces) isn’t just alarming—it’s potentially suicidal.

Crises, however, are moments of reinvention. It’s not change I fear, but stagnation. The good news? We’ve been here before—and we’re more than capable of finding a way forward once again.

My book: The Pocket AI Guide: A Practical Introduction for Professionals, available now on Kiindle! (https://a.co/d/gFXzvhy)

Physical copies coming out soon!