Is the United States moving toward techno-fascism? | Press review n°24
I selected important news on artificial intelligence during the week of September 15 to 21, 2025. Here's my commentary.
Welcome to the twenty-fourth press review of Artificial reality. This week I focused on the possible rise of a technological fascism in the U.S., on the existential risks of artificial superintelligence, and on the data analysis company Palantir. Have a good read!
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Is the United States moving toward techno-fascism?
The collusion between Silicon Valley and Washington is igniting a debate over the resurgence of a form of fascism in the United States, Le Temps reports in an article published Friday.
That proximity was already obvious during Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. All the major Silicon Valley CEOs were seated in the front rows, in a show of allegiance.
Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai attend Trump's inauguration (Associated Press)
The cooperation between the technology industry and the federal government became even more apparent at a recent White House dinner, where tech leaders Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Sam Altman (OpenAI), Tim Cook (Apple), Sundar Pichai (Google), Satya Nadella and Bill Gates (Microsoft) each took turns to compliment the President.
Trump hosts top tech CEOs, not including Elon Musk, at White House dinner (PBS)
“It would be reductive to portray the rallying of Silicon Valley to the Trump administration as a brand new phenomenon driven solely by opportunism masquerading as political pragmatism,” analyzes journalist Nastasia Hadjadji, co‑author with Olivier Tesquet of Apocalypse Nerds: How Techno‑Fascists Took Power. She argues that while California is largely aligned with the Democrats, the leading figures in tech have always been in contact with counter‑revolutionary movements.
“Silicon Valley is not a homogeneous bloc, it is shaped by antagonistic ideologies,” the journalist notes. “Currently, it is dominated by a resurgence of an elitist vision founded on controversial concepts such as race and IQ, and the desire to forge a new humanity augmented by technology.”
Techno‑fascism
“We must move beyond the myth that Silicon Valley is a happy democratic or hippie utopia,” says Olivier Tesquet. The fact that top tech executives have rallied behind Donald Trump therefore comes as no surprise to him.
In his book Apocalypse Nerds, the journalist uses the notion of techno‑fascism to analyze the alliance between Trumpism and Silicon Valley. According to him, fascism consists of three invariants that “appear in the new exercise of American power.”
The idea of an anti‑modern counter‑revolution. “Here we must understand the notion of political modernity, the so‑called ‘wokeism’ that is despised, not technological progress,” clarifies Tesquet.
A rhetoric that implicitly mobilizes violence and the exclusion of undesirables as a vital force to regenerate the nation. This is especially evident in recent statements by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance after the assassination of influencer Charlie Kirk.
The primacy of race. “It shows up in these cognitive elites’ obsession with IQ, or in their fascination with eugenics theories, which are experiencing a strong comeback,” concludes Tesquet.
For Asma Mhalla, author of the essay Technopolitics, on which I wrote an article, and Cyberpunk. The New Totalitarian System, Trumpism shares several traits with fascism: xenophobia, scapegoating, personality cult, and ultra‑nationalist discourse. Yet it does not tick all the boxes because “Donald Trump continues to operate within a democratic framework, albeit a weakened one, and there is no mass physical repression of the opposition at this stage,” she adds.
Seizing power
Tech industry leaders now openly acknowledge their desire to seize power, according to Frédéric Neyrat, author of Traumachine: Artificial Intelligence and Techno‑Fascism. “One revealing episode for me was Elon Musk’s press conference in the Oval Office. It demonstrated a physical presence of these actors within the institutions themselves.”
Trump, Elon Musk Full Press Conference in Oval Office (The Wall Street Journal)
Musk’s involvement in the Washington administration also marked a turning point, as he relied on algorithms to make decisions aimed at drastically cutting state spending, according to Neyrat. “The next step will be to use artificial intelligence to orchestrate public services,” the philosopher predicts.
The Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), initially led by Musk, reportedly leveraged its access to government databases to create a system for monitoring undocumented immigrants, as reported by Wired.
Data analytics company Palantir also plays a significant role in the White House, particularly in its fight against illegal immigration. It is also suspected of building a massive database on the entire population.
Palantir is active in the military as well and recently secured a $10 billion contract to modernize its future software and data needs.
Overall, a rise in surveillance across the United States can be observed, enabled by AI programs such as facial recognition systems and automatic license‑plate readers, as well as military drones and fake cell towers.
Finally, to avoid becoming a target of the President, major U.S. tech companies, such as Meta, have revised their moderation policies to stop filtering certain right‑wing content on social medias. Apple has also adjusted its AI model to suit the “Trump era,” Politico revealed.
The Dark Enlightenment
Vice President J.D. Vance, another key figure alongside Donald Trump, openly embraces neo‑reaction, a philosophical current also called the Dark Enlightenment, co‑founded by far‑right intellectual Curtis Yarvin. According to Yarvin, democracy has proven ineffective at organizing society and should be replaced by an authoritarian, essentially monarchical regime.
Another right‑wing intellectual, Peter Thiel, also has a significant influence in the Trump administration. The PayPal and Palantir co‑founder is close to both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. The Vice President worked for two years at the venture‑capital fund Mithril Capital, co‑founded by Thiel in 2015. Years later, the investor was among the top donors to Vance’s Senate campaign, contributing nearly $15 million. He also worked behind the scenes to convince Donald Trump to pick J.D. Vance as his running mate in 2024.
And what does Peter Thiel think of democracy? In 2009, the billionaire wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
The current explosive climate in the United States, highlighted by the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a right‑wing activist close to Donald Trump, could be a tipping point enabling the White House to further accelerate the political transformation of society.
We’re Experts in Fascism. We’re Leaving the U.S. (New York Times Opinion)
Seven important news this week
ChatGPT tricked to swipe sensitive data from Gmail (The Verge)
Sam Altman says ChatGPT will stop talking about suicide with teens (The Verge)
Parents of teens who died by suicide after AI chatbot interactions testify to Congress (Associated Press)
Meta Accused of Torrenting Porn to Advance Its Goal of AI ‘Superintelligence’ (Wired)
Meta created its own super PAC to politically kneecap its AI rivals (The Verge)
Artificial intelligence ushers in a golden age of hacking, experts say (The Washington Post)
AI will make the rich unfathomably richer. Is this really what we want? (The Guardian)
🎥 Watch
The existential risks of artificial superintelligence
In a recent episode of System Update, journalist Lee Fang interviews Nate Soares, President of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and co-author of the book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. They talk about the existential risks associated with the creation of an artificial general intelligence.
“AI companies are rushing in that direction [of artificial superintelligence] as fast as they can. They say this directly. If you look at these companies, they’re founded for the pursuit of artificial general intelligence, artificial superintelligence. These labs say: “we are going for these targets.” These labs didn’t set out to build chatbots, these labs have set out to build much more powerful AIs and chatbots are a stepping stone along the way.”
“Questions of deepfakes, questions of compensating artists for AI art, questions of job loss, those are all important questions for how humanity is going to integrate the current AI tech. There’s also questions around weaponry. These are important questions for society to grapple with. You know the computers are talking now, there’s a lot versatility there, there’s some things they can do well, there’s some things they can’t do reliably, there’s some ways they’re helpful, they’re some ways they’re harmful. This is something for society to grapple with and integrate with. And there’s a sort of separate issue from making machines that are smarter than any human, making machines that can act on their own initative, making machines that are maybe smarter than us while, if we use anything like current techniques, they’re gonna have drives, goals, objectives that we didn’t put in there.”
- Nate Soares
"Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All:" Researcher Warns of Existential AI Risk (Glenn Greenwald)
Seven important videos this week
'Let Me Just Read That Again': Hawley Reads Shocking Actual Conversation Between AI Chatbot & Child (Forbes)
I Live Next To Amazon's Largest Data Center. They're Stealing Our Water (More Perfect Union)
Your Doctor Said Yes. AI Said No. (Vanessa Wingårdh)
Why Wall Street Loves Oracle Again (Bloomberg)
Why People Are Roleplaying Robot Racism (Taylor Lorenz)
Forget AI, The Robots Are Coming! (ColdFusion)
AI Hype is 'Biggest Bubble' in Private Tech, Says Jack Selby (Bloomberg)
🔈 Listen
The ties between Palantir and Washington
In the new episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, journalists Paris Marx and Caroline Haskins talk about the data analysis company Palantir and its influence within the U.S. government.
Listen to Tech Won’t Save Us on Youtube Music
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Have a good week,
Arnaud
