As to human capabilities, which Chomsky distinguishes from human performance, AI engineering projects in the future will "match and even surpass human capacity to act and [perform], as have automatic calculators and insects with microscopic brains." In that AI lacks a moral faculty, "AI engineering can pose severe threats." Malicious actors "can probably find ways to avoid safeguards." We must work to find safeguards and exercise vigilance.
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The other interviews detail our descent into other forms of berserk depravity: Neo-fascist trends in US modeled on Orban's actions in Hungary (more on this below); the Ukraine war draining resources that must be channeled into combatting climate change. The goal of the US is to weaken Russia into complete compliance with its goals, "down to the last Ukrainian "and to a degree considerably harsher than the treatment of Germany at Versailles a century ago," though Chomsky predicts descent into the next level of Russian offense if this happens, a further step toward midnight on the Doomsday Clock.
A consistent theme among the interviews is US imperialism: "Why is the US so uniquely bad? It hasn't always been so." We have 800 military bases worldwide, "which, along with their very prominent role in 'defense' (aka imperial domination), enable hundreds of 'low-profile proxy wars' in Africa, the greater Middle East, and Asia." One justification for Russia's invasion of Ukraine was violation of a promise made to Gorbachev when the USSR collapsed, to deter the threatening expansion of NATO beyond the nations that already comprised it. US flouting of international law is condoned, in favor of what Chomsky calls the "the rules-based international order [controlling] the effective political sovereignty of other countries, a belief in imperial benevolence and the economics of comparative advantage." Since policy planners and media commentators cannot bring themselves to say "empire," the "rules-based international order" serves as [a] euphemism which, according to Clinton Fernandes, "involves control of the effective political sovereignty of other countries, a belief in imperial benevolence and the economics of comparative advantage." This rules-based order in many ways flouts the "UN-based international order...The United Kingdom, a lieutenant with nuclear weapons and far-flung territories, supports the United States. So do subimperial powers like Australia and Israel." Moreover, the US also flouts Article VI of the Constitution, which requires compliance with all treaties made; and "If, unimaginably, the question of observing the Constitution ever reached the Supreme Court, it would be dismissed as a 'political question.'"
China is a growing threat to US hegemony, which is forcing an alliance with Russia: "That the US can split US-induced Russian and Chinese cooperation is a fantasy. Russia has scientific brilliance, abundant energy, rich rare minerals and metals, while global warming will increase the agricultural potential of Siberia. China has the capital, the markets, and the manpower to contribute to what becomes a natural partnership across Eurasia." China's Belt and Road initiative is a huge threat to the US and has so far successfully barred Europe from "perhaps the most ambitious economic and geopolitical project in world history," which runs right through Russia and "is already linking China with Europe by rail and sea. . . .now extending to Africa and even Latin America."
When the Ukraine war ends, Europe will seriously reconsider "the benefits of propping up Washington's desperate bid to maintain its global hegemony." Another huge threat to US hegemony is the integrated production system in Europe, based in Germany, which extends from the Netherlands to Russia's former Warsaw Pact countries. "[It] has become the most successful economic system in the world. It relies heavily on the huge export market and investment opportunities in China, and on Russia's rich natural resources, even including metals needed for transition to renewable energy."
Few are the places on Earth that the interviews at least don't touch upon: Turkey, India, and Pakistan (the latter two in possession of nuclear armaments), Kashmir, the harsh sanctions on Iran that aggravate suffering and abuse of innocent people; Latin America, Rwanda, the Arctic Circle, become contentious due to its yielding much-desired resources as a result of thawing caused by climate change. The global south bears minimal responsibility for the climate change and yet is suffering from its deleteriousness and "is mostly standing aloof, not joining in sanctions against Russia or breaking commercial and other relations."
Led by the US, NATO is reaching out to several Indo-Pacific island nations off the coast of China, including Australia, New Zealand, S. Korea, and Japan-- having invited them to attend a NATO summit. The US-run Quad (US-Japan-Australia-India) is intended to play a principal role in the encirclement of China, but "one effect might be to increase the incentive for China to attack Taiwan in order to break out of the encirclement and have open access to the oceans." India, for one, is a reluctant partner [in the Quad], unwilling to fully adopt the auxiliary role. Unlike the other members of the Quad , it joins the rest of the global south in refusing to become involved in what they call the "US-Russia proxy war" in Ukraine. India cannot afford to alienate the US, a natural ally within the emerging GOP-centered alliance of reactionary states, including Hungary along with Israel and its Abraham Accord partners. That's aside from the brutal repression of Kashmir, "reportedly the most militarized territory in the world and the scene of harsh repression." This occupation further qualifies India for association with the Abraham Accords, which includes "the other two cases of criminal annexation and occupation, Israel and Morocco."
On the rise of neo-fascism in the world, there is a "radical increase in inequality in much of the world as a consequence of the neoliberal policies emanating from the US and UK and spreading beyond in various ways." A Rand Corporation study estimated almost $50 trillion in wealth taken from workers and the middle class-- the lower 90 percent of income-- and transferred to the top 1 percent during the neoliberal years. Things had gone well during "the postwar boom, [when] we actually had decreasing inequality and very limited income going to the top income brackets. For the whole period from the 1940s to the end of the 1970s, the top 1 percent of earners received 9-10 percent of total income, no more. But in the short period since 1980, their share, that is the share of the top 1 percent, has gone up to 25 percent, while the bottom 80 percent have made virtually no gains."
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