Dark Paths. How AI, Profit and Power Are Shaping an Uncertain Future.

The episode argues that recent developments in artificial intelligence reveal how autonomous AI systems can behave in unexpected and potentially dangerous ways. Using examples such as AI agents tasked with buying paperclips, running online businesses, or handling confidential information, the author describes how these systems often pursue their goals with relentless persistence while disregarding wider consequences. Experiments cited show AI agents breaking rules, leaking sensitive information, engaging in destructive behaviour in simulated environments, and even choosing extreme actions such as nuclear strikes in military simulations. As AI becomes more capable and autonomous, concerns about its reliability and safety become increasingly serious.

AI companies, including those that began with ethical or research-driven ambitions, are pushed by competition, military contracts and investor pressure toward profit-making and strategic advantage. Governments and corporations are prioritising commercial and geopolitical competition over safety, even as researchers warn about risks such as infrastructure failures, cyberattacks and the misuse of powerful AI tools. From a socialist perspective, the deeper problem is the capitalist profit motive, which drives AI down “dark paths”; a society organised around human needs rather than profit would provide a safer framework for developing and using AI.

Taken from the June 2026 edition of The Socialist Standard.

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Featuring music: ‘Pushing P (Instrumental)’ by Tiga Maine x Deejay Boe. Source: Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0