In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we're doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation.
By Joshua Scheer
I begin with an important quote, as calls for a general strike on January 30 emerge from this interview. One key takeaway comes from guest Peter Byrne, who observes:
“People in Minnesota are affirming life. People around the world are affirming life. Unfortunately, the media is the enemy—it’s part of the war machine.” As January 30 approaches, the significance of that insight becomes impossible to ignore. When people organize to affirm life, it exposes how deeply invested the media and political class are in maintaining a war economy that requires distortion, fear, and silence to survive. Here is the longer intro from our conversation
Click to subscribe on: Apple / Spotify / Amazon
The AI War Machine: Peter Byrne on Silicon Valley, Militarism, and the Superorganism Driving Us Toward Catastrophe
Award‑winning investigative journalist Peter Byrne returns to discuss the final installment of his groundbreaking 10‑part Project Censored series on the militarization of artificial intelligence. After two years of research tracing the deepening ties between Silicon Valley, the Pentagon, Wall Street, and corporate media, Byrne argues that AI is no longer a neutral tool—it is now embedded in a self‑propelling war machine that may already exceed meaningful human control.
As Byrne puts it, the United States has created a “necrotic, death‑oriented modality” in which weapons systems, capital flows, and political institutions reinforce one another in a cycle of endless militarization. Companies like Palantir, Anduril, Microsoft, and OpenAI are not simply contractors; they are nodes in a superorganism that feeds on conflict, surveillance, and profit.
Palantir, Silicon Valley, and the Myth of Moral Tech
Asked about Palantir’s growing influence—from Minnesota policing to global military contracts—Byrne dismisses the company’s self‑styled moral philosophy as pure marketing.
“Alex Karp and Peter Thiel claim to be intellectuals,” Byrne says, “but they’re just corrupt billionaires channeling recycled xenophobia about China.” He notes that Palantir’s entire business model depends on government contracts and the maintenance of a permanent security state.
These companies, Byrne argues, are not guided by ethics but by algorithms of profit. “They’re avatars of their own systems,” he says. “Weapons systems are reproducing themselves, ingesting capital and excreting corpses.”
The New York Times and the Manufacture of Consent
Byrne’s final article opens with a critique of the New York Times editorial board, whose six‑part “Overmatched” series enthusiastically endorsed a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget and framed AI militarization as necessary to counter China.
“It was one of the scariest things I’ve read,” Byrne says. “They were channeling Karp, Schmidt, Musk, Andreessen—just parroting Silicon Valley’s war propaganda.”
He points out that even Pentagon and RAND reports contradict the Times’ claims: China’s military is technologically inferior, internally corrupt, and overwhelmingly defensive. China has not fought a war since 1979, while the United States has waged continuous conflict for decades.
War as a Superorganism
The heart of Byrne’s argument is philosophical. Drawing on E.O. Wilson, Thucydides, and contemporary systems theorists, he describes war as a self‑organizing superorganism—an adaptive, energy‑seeking structure that uses humans as its agents.
“We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology,” Byrne quotes Wilson. “It’s terrifically dangerous.”
Byrne argues that AI accelerates this dynamic. As human‑machine teams proliferate, the infrastructure of digitized warfare begins to reproduce itself, independent of human intention. The “singularity,” he suggests, may have already occurred—not as sci‑fi fantasy, but as the moment humans first created tools that reshaped our evolution and our politics.
The Illusion of Control
Byrne rejects the idea that AI will save us from ourselves. “People fantasize that AI might stop a nuclear launch,” he says. “But the systems we’ve built are already beyond our control.”
He points to decades of failed missile‑defense fantasies—from SAGE to Reagan’s Star Wars to today’s “Golden Dome”—as examples of technological hubris masking profit‑driven boondoggles.
Even industry insiders admit these systems don’t work. “They won’t tell us what Golden Dome is,” Byrne says, “because it won’t work. But they’ll take the $100 billion.”
China, Taiwan, and Manufactured Threats
Byrne dismantles the dominant narrative that China is an aggressive military power. China’s military spending is a fraction of the U.S. budget, and its primary focus is preventing American invasion—not projecting global force.
Taiwan, he notes, is deeply economically intertwined with mainland China. “It’s like if Texas broke off and was sponsored by Russia,” Byrne says. “That’s how China sees it.”
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is exploitative, he acknowledges, but it is not militaristic. “They’re not invading countries, slaughtering civilians, or threatening nuclear war,” Byrne says. “That’s our playbook.”
Can Humanity Evolve Beyond the Death Drive?
I asked Byrne whether humanity can evolve beyond this destructive trajectory. Millions of people, from Minnesota to global peace movements, are affirming life. Yet the ruling class continues to steer us toward catastrophe.
Byrne’s answer is sobering: systems, not individuals, drive history. Capital concentrates. War machines grow. Technology accelerates. And humans, shaped by evolutionary impulses, follow patterns older than civilization.
But he also insists that awareness matters. Understanding the superorganism is the first step toward resisting it.
What Comes Next
Byrne will soon launch Military AI Watch on Substack, expanding his reporting with interviews, breaking news, and deeper investigations into the militarization of AI. He hopes to debut the project in May.
As his 10‑part series concludes, Byrne leaves us with a stark warning: the war machine is evolving faster than our political institutions, our media, or our moral imagination. And unless we confront the systems driving militarized AI, we may not survive the technologies we’ve created.
Some Key Takeaways
🧩 1. AI Militarization Isn’t a Trend — It’s the Latest Phase of a 10,000‑Year System
Byrne reframes AI militarization not as a new crisis, but as the continuation of a civilizational pattern that began with:
- the first hand axe
- the first stored grain surplus
- the first ruling class
- the first organized war
AI is simply the newest tool in a long lineage of technologies that amplify violence, hierarchy, and extraction.
This is not a story about “bad actors.” It’s a story about systems that produce the same outcomes regardless of who is in charge.
🦠 2. War Functions as a Self‑Organizing Superorganism
Byrne’s central thesis: War is not controlled by presidents, CEOs, or generals. War is a self‑propagating organism that:
- consumes capital, land, data, and bodies
- reproduces through institutions
- uses humans as its nervous system
- evolves new technologies to extend itself
AI accelerates this process by giving the war machine:
- faster perception
- faster decision‑making
- faster reproduction
- increasing autonomy from human oversight
This is the most radical idea in the conversation: War no longer needs us. We are its hosts.
🧠 3. Humans Have Paleolithic Brains, Medieval Institutions, and Godlike Technology
Byrne invokes E.O. Wilson to argue that:
- Our biology is wired for tribal fear, dominance, and fight‑or‑flight.
- Our institutions (states, armies, bureaucracies) were built for feudal power structures.
- Our technology now operates at planetary scale with extinction‑level consequences.
This mismatch creates a permanent crisis condition:
- Nuclear weapons + primate emotions
- AI weapons + medieval geopolitics
- Global surveillance + 19th‑century nationalism
We are not evolved enough to wield the tools we’ve built.
🧨 4. Silicon Valley Billionaires Are Not Visionaries — They Are Systemic Functionaries
Byrne strips away the mythology around:
- Peter Thiel
- Alex Karp
- Elon Musk
- Eric Schmidt
- Marc Andreessen
- Sam Altman
He argues they are not “geniuses” or “philosophers,” but:
- avatars of capital
- mouthpieces for militarized profit-seeking algorithms
- participants in a necropolitical system that rewards death over life
Their rhetoric about “freedom vs. tyranny” is:
- recycled Cold War propaganda
- infused with anti‑Chinese racism
- designed to justify endless militarization
They are not leading the system. The system is leading them.
📰 5. The New York Times Has Become an Organ of the War Machine
Byrne’s critique of the NYT’s “Overmatched” series is devastating:
- It repeats Silicon Valley talking points.
- It inflates China’s military capabilities.
- It frames AI militarization as inevitable and necessary.
- It normalizes a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget.
- It manufactures consent for a new Cold War.
The NYT is no longer a watchdog. It is a public relations arm for the military‑industrial‑AI complex.
🇨🇳 6. The China Threat Narrative Is a Strategic Fiction
Byrne dismantles the core claims:
- China hasn’t fought a war since 1979.
- Its military is corrupt, politicized, and technologically behind.
- Its buildup is defensive, not expansionist.
- Taiwan is economically and culturally intertwined with the mainland.
- China’s global influence is economic (Belt & Road), not military.
The U.S. needs China as an enemy because:
- the war machine requires a rival
- AI militarization requires a justification
- Silicon Valley requires a narrative
China is the perfect foil for American militarism.
🛡️ 7. Missile Defense Is a Multi‑Trillion‑Dollar Fantasy
Byrne exposes the “Golden Dome” as:
- technologically impossible
- classified because it doesn’t work
- a continuation of Star Wars–style boondoggles
- a profit pipeline for defense contractors
Missile defense is not about safety. It’s about extracting public wealth into private hands.
🧬 8. AI Has Already Reached a Kind of Singularity — Just Not the Sci‑Fi One
Byrne argues the real singularity happened:
- when humans first used tools
- when agriculture created surplus
- when states formed
- when war became institutionalized
AI is not becoming conscious. AI is becoming embedded in the war machine.
The danger is not robot rebellion. The danger is automated empire.
🌍 9. The U.S. Economy Is Structurally Dependent on War
Byrne emphasizes:
- The U.S. is far more militarized than China.
- War spending is the backbone of American capitalism.
- Silicon Valley’s growth is tied to Pentagon contracts.
- AI is the new frontier of military Keynesianism.
War is not a policy choice. It is an economic model.
🌱 10. Despite the System, People Are Choosing Life
Byrne highlights:
- Minnesota’s anti‑war vote
- global resistance movements
- Indigenous worldviews that see humans as part of nature
- the possibility of re‑embedding humanity in ecological reality
The war machine is powerful, but not omnipotent. People still resist. People still imagine alternatives. People still choose life.
📰 11. Byrne’s Next Chapter: Military AI Watch
Launching in May:
- breaking investigations
- interviews with military‑AI insiders
- a full editorial and art team
- a platform for exposing the war machine in real time
This is the continuation of the work — not the conclusion.
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.