Trump’s Stargate Project: Gateway to US AI Dominance or Dystopian Cyberpunk Nightmare?
14:25 GMT 25.01.2025 (Updated: 17:44 GMT 25.01.2025)
© AP Photo / Mark Lennihan
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The US’ new $500 billion tech initiative promises to “revolutionize” AI, “cement” America as the undisputed leader in advanced computing, and create 100,000 jobs. But it comes with grave risks for humanity. Here’s why.
The Basics
The Stargate Project is a privately financed plan to build 500,000-sq-ft AI data centers (10 under construction, 10 more to come), and grow from there, pending support from Donald Trump on the regulatory front.
Its leading tech and financial players include Sam Altman’s OpenAI, Larry Ellison’s Oracle, Japan’s SoftBank, and Emirati sovereign wealth fund MGX. ARM, Nvidia, and Microsoft are also involved.
Further details are sketchy, aside from an FT report revealing that the project will serve OpenAI’s interests exclusively, and OpenAI’s statement on looking forward to the creation of artificial general intelligence – the Holy Grail of human-like cognitive capabilities in machines.
Red Flags
Altman and Ellison’s involvement are major warning signs.
Altman is on the record as a proponent of a transhumanist “merge” of human beings and machines. In 2017, he predicted that “the singularity” would take place between 2025-2075, and that superhuman AI, genetic enhancement and brain-machine interfaces were an inevitability.
“More important than that, unless we destroy ourselves first, superhuman AI is going to happen, genetic enhancement is going to happen, and brain-machine interfaces are going to happen. It is a failure of human imagination and human arrogance to assume that we will never build things smarter than ourselves,” he wrote at the time.
He’s is also an advocate of "AI agents" acting on human beings’ behalf online via the controversial World ID concept.
As for Ellison, the 80-year-old tech billionaire's controversial views are well-known. Last year, he touted omnipresent AI cameras keeping citizens “on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on” as a good thing, and has been a proponent of national and digital IDs since 9/11.
“We’re going to have supervision,” he said last September, assuring this would apply to authorities like police officers as well (feigning ignorance of the probability of a Robocop-style 4th directive preventing machines from arresting owners engaged in criminal behavior).
Ellison is also an advocate of AI-driven mRNA cancer vaccines, announcing at Stargate's rollout this week that artificial intelligence could help identify cancer via blood testing followed by gene therapy.
Microsoft’s involvement in the project is also troubling, with the company already planning to commit $80 billion for its own separate AI data centers to train and deploy cloud-based AI worldwide.
A 2024 report by Business Insider revealed that real-life supervillain Bill Gates remains heavily involved in Microsoft’s AI strategies, from its decision to help OpenAI grow to support for Altman’s AI Agent idea.
12 August 2024, 03:54 GMT
Can It Be Stopped?
However, there’s a hitch in Altman’s development plans, with FT’s revelations that Stargate is an OpenAI investment vehicle disguised as a national project, combined with Altman’s very public feud with fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk following the initiative's announcement, signaling trouble.
According to Musk, SoftBank has actually secured less than $10 billion for Stargate so far. Altman assures that’s not the case, and accuses Musk of letting private interests get in the way of “what is great for the country.”
Screenshot of viral feud between OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk.
© Photo : X / screenshot
Musk, who has integrated narrow AI across his business empire, from Tesla’s autopilot to the AI chatbot Grok, has a long-outstanding grudge against Altman (including a 2024 lawsuit accusing OpenAI of violating its mission statement by putting profits over humanity).
He’s also expressed fears of a 10-20% chance of AI wiping out humanity (although AI safety researcher Roman Yampolskiy says it’s more like 99.999999%).
Naysayers of projects like Stargate argue that without regulation and left in the hands of corporations and the military-industrial complex, powerful AI systems will quickly become a tool for round-the-clock surveillance, signing off on military war crimes, and the implementation of social credit score systems long feared by sci-fi.
9 April 2024, 16:30 GMT
Down-to-Earth Problems May Also Plague Project
Besides the major political and philosophical concerns and risks, Stargate also faces some everyday concerns, from the massive gamble it represents to investors in the financial sense, to issues relating to the power-hungry project straining the US energy grid, not to mention AI centers’ obscene levels of water usage.
