Why do nations fight? Land, honour, glory, God, revenge or grievances? You can give me a million excuses, but I will always posit that it is invariably about resources. Without resources (including human and material resources), nations amount to nothing. It's the economy, stupid!

That is why nations need to pay attention. I have written repeatedly on the matter, but our Neros seem to have better priorities to fiddle with. We live in and have created a highly flawed world. It is already pregnant with inequalities, suffering and tragedies. And despite that, we are sleepwalking towards almost certain doom.

If you think I am exaggerating, look at the pace of AI development. It has accelerated in recent days. One key contributing factor to this acceleration is the growing international competition. Had the DeepSeek moment not shaken the industry to its core, one could still think that the dreaded future would not have come sooner than we anticipated.

But all bets are off with DeepSeek, AI agents like Manus and rapid investment in the field. Remember, this is just the news out of China. Imagine how many other countries, entities or non-state actors might quietly pursue AI development. This essentially means that development will remain miles ahead of any regulatory framework humanity may finally develop. And any of these models could take a darker turn.

We are still grappling with basic questions. Is it possible for AI to replace all jobs? And how distant will that occur in the future? You may notice three different responses simultaneously: sweet, naive, abstract optimism — if machines do your jobs, you........

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