Back in the 1930s the educated class knew that the future was Socialism, and philosopher and activist Antonio Gramsci proposed a “long march through the institutions” to make it happen. Every educated person helped; some even spied for the Soviet Union.

“Because I am so wise” and have been studying life, the universe, and everything all my life, I prophesy that we are currently in the early stages of a Tech March Through the Institutions, as the tech lords impose their AI will upon the human race.

Now, I like to stash events that I don’t quite understand in my mind, in the hope that sooner or later it will all make sense. Here is my “tech lord” stash:

1. Elon Musk buys Twitter in October 2022.
2. My Substack in 2024: “Are the tech lords really woke” or just takin’ care of bidness?
3. Tech lord Marc Andreessen appears on The Joe Rogan Experience on November 26, 2024, after the 2024 presidential election.
4. Tech lords are Mosca’s “second tier” in the Trump ruling class.
5. Biden White House tells tech lords in 2024  that AI will have no startups.
6. Tech lords in battalion strength at January 20, 2025 Trump inauguration.
7. Jeff Bezos reorganizes Washington Post in February 2025.
8. Bari Weiss’s The Free Press funded by tech lords Marc Andreessen and David Sacks in 2021.
9. Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle) and son David buy Paramount, including CBS News. Send Bari Weiss to be editor-in-chief of CBS News.
10. Wokey college professors don’t like AI.
11. AI promoters go “nuke, baby, nuke” because they need nuclear plants to power AI.

All I can say is: don’t tell your blue-haired liberal friend about this, and for goodness sake don’t post anything on Bluesky! Nothing to see here!

Now, it all makes sense, and the key item in the list above is Marc Andreessen’s visit to the Biden White House in 2024. The Bidenoids told him:

We are going to make sure that A.I. is going to be a function of two or three large companies. We will directly regulate and control those companies. There will be no start-ups.

When Marc and his tech bros went out into the parking lot at the White House afterwards they decided “Yep, we’re for Trump.”

Can you spell “No Clue?” The Bidenoids were telling Tech Lord Andreessen that they had no clue how the modern market economy works: Andreessen was the kid who developed the Mosaic browser in 1992 and then went to California in 1994 to create Mosaic Communications Corporation, and introduced Netscape to the world. His startup was bought by AOL in 1999 for $4.3 billion.

Hey, Bidenoids. Maybe you should have crawled over broken glass to venture-capitalist Marc at Andreessen-Horowitz (founded 2009) to ask humbly: how should we do AI?

Of course, this Tech March Through the Institutions is my little joke. Gramsci’s plan was to create a glorious socialist regime that would save the world from poverty and injustice -- and instead delivered famine and injustice. I doubt if the tech lords are executing on a political power project.  They just want to do their thing and create lots of cool start-ups and let the market decide whose great idea is a great idea that works.

The tech lords don’t have a grand plan to remake society, but they do think it would be cool to do AI. And for that they are going to need lots of nuclear power. So bye-bye wind and solar.

Alas, college professors don’t think AI is cool. Using AI in the classroom is “unscrupulous and unserious,” for it uses “cheap, disintegrated, and practically infinite information available on the Internet” according to one academician.

Oh, the horror: infinite information on the Internet and the end of civilization as we know it. But imagine what AI could do to education costs!

The average U.S. private college costs about $63,000 per year. That’s about the same as the average U.S. wage of $62,000 per year. So college costs about four years’ average wage. Imagine how the cost of education could be reduced if the kids were just using AI to learn stuff instead of expensive union teachers and insufferable college professors.

But how would the kids know what to learn with AI? Let’s ask Grok AI:

Teaching kids using AI should focus on skills and concepts that prepare them for a future where AI is ubiquitous, while fostering creativity, critical thinking, and ethical awareness.

Then Grok describes a four-part education program for the kids from age 5 to 18.

Now, I finally understand that professor’s outrage. How dare Grok propose a four-part education program! Experts agree that four-part programs are the exclusive preserve of politicians and fully-credentialed academics.

I say to the tech lords. Forget about a Long March. Just go “full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes” on AI. Maybe we’ll see the end of the education system as we know it, among other “cheap, disintegrated” surprises.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill blogs at The Commoner Manifesto and runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

Image: Jérémy Barande