by Le Grand Continent | Jun 15, 2025 | News
The second richest man in the world has a plan: to establish a new regime of surveillance and domination—with low-cost video sensors, thousands of drones, and an infinite mass of data constantly analyzed by AI in the hands of the State
Granular, irrefutable, inevitable: “We are constantly recording and reporting everything that happens, so citizens will have to be constantly diligent.”
Donald Trump has allocated $500 billion to launch it with Sam Altman and SoftBank’s financial engineering.
On September 12, at the annual financial analysts meeting of the tech giant Oracle, its founder Larry Ellison—whose fortune is estimated at over $200 billion, making him one of the richest men in the world—presented the numerous benefits that surveillance tools powered by Oracle could bring to the company.
Ultra-precise cameras that are impossible to turn off, hundreds of millions of images sent in real time from across the country to the “headquarters,” a wall of screens where they are constantly processed by artificial intelligence, a company that knows it is being watched all the time, yet maintains strict control over itself. The description of this AI-enhanced Big Brother could seem taken from a dystopia or a report on Xi Jinping’s China. However, it is one of the selling points put forward by Ellison—who turns 81 this year and presents himself as a fervent advocate of transhumanism—to promote the merits of Oracle’s latest advances.
The purpose of these advances is summed up in a stark formula: “citizens will behave better because we record and report everything that happens.” In other words: a large-scale surveillance and domination mechanism to regulate the population’s behavior. As Giuliano da Empoli noted in the magazine: “The Chinese Communist Party and Silicon Valley are working on a posthuman future.”
Unlike Musk, Ellison has a long-standing interest in politics. He has historically been a Republican donor: after Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, his Porcupine Creek estate in Rancho Mirage, California, hosted a fundraiser for Trump in 2016. He also maintains close and privileged ties with Benjamin Netanyahu and has financed several land annexation projects in Jerusalem, which were later challenged for being illegal.
Although he remains chairman of the board and chief technology officer at Oracle, Ellison is no longer CEO. While the company is better known for the JavaScript system and other software solutions used on virtually every computer in the world, its ties to the defense and surveillance ecosystem go back a long way. When Ellison and his partners launched the company in 1977 to offer database management services, Oracle was the code name of a CIA project running that same year. In fact, the U.S. counterintelligence agency was its first client. Even before integrating into large corporations, the solutions offered by Oracle quickly became essential for public institutions; little by little, the systems developed were used everywhere, at all levels of administration.
On January 31, 2002, a few months after the shock of September 11, Larry Ellison advocated for the creation of a single national security database in an article for the New York Times: “The most important step Americans could take to make life more difficult for terrorists would be to ensure that all the information contained in the myriad of government databases is copied into a single, comprehensive national security database.”
In Other Words, a Database Combined with Biometric Data —thumbprints, handprints, iris scans, etc.— used to detect false identities, for example. It’s easy to see how such a model could be abused to control or even influence the social behavior of the population; examples can be found in autocracies like Xi Jinping’s China and in authoritarian democracies like Modi’s India.
On the day after his inauguration, January 21, Donald Trump made a sensational announcement. Alongside Sam Altman, Masayoshi Son, and Larry Ellison, he unveiled a massive plan: $500 billion in investment, massive deregulation, and the goal of ushering in a “Golden Age of AI” in the United States. The “Stargate Project” is a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX, an AI investor backed by the United Arab Emirates. U.S. companies Nvidia and Microsoft, along with the U.K.’s ARM, are also expected to participate in the technical components. Described by Trump as “the largest AI infrastructure project in history,” Stargate will use these investments to build massive data centers, 10 of which are already under construction in Texas, the largest electricity producer in the U.S. and the state with the biggest hydrocarbon reserves.
With the announcement of the Stargate Project, Ellison may be putting his plan into motion. In his responses to investors in September, he also said: “AI is a Formula 1 race. Everyone wants to be the first in one of the AI application areas. How much do you think it takes to get into the race and create a competitive AI model? $10 billion? $100 billion? Yes, $100 billion, and you can join the race. Few companies, few countries can enter the race. But that’s great for us!”
Giuliano da Empoli commented: “Both Silicon Valley and the Chinese Communist Party are working toward a posthuman future. Most engineers working in Silicon Valley tech companies have the unfortunate tendency to think their priority isn’t to serve the humans of today, but to build the artificial intelligences that will inherit the Earth tomorrow. Constant surveillance and behavior-modifying tests on crowds of humans are supposed to collect data to feed the ‘intelligence’ of future AIs. For its part, the Chinese regime, like the major tech companies, has publicly committed to an ‘AI race,’ which it often places above all else. There is a troubling convergence between this race and the experiments being conducted in biotechnology, particularly aggressive in Chinese laboratories.”
We believe we can fully secure schools and reduce the risk of unauthorized individuals being inside them.
The moment someone draws a weapon, the cameras recognize it immediately.
In fact, we’ve completely reimagined body cameras. Our body cameras cost $70. A standard body camera costs $7,000. Our cameras are simply two lenses fixed to your jacket and connected to your smartphone, which is directly on your body.
And the camera is always on. It cannot be turned off. When you tell Oracle: “I need two minutes to go to the bathroom” and we turn it off, the truth is we don’t really turn it off. What we do is record it in a way that no one can access.
No one can access this recording without a court order.
That’s how privacy is protected, as requested. But if the courts demand it, we will review what you call a “bathroom break.” If you say “I’m going to lunch with friends for an hour, I need privacy,” God bless you! We won’t listen. Unless a judge orders it.
We send the video to police headquarters, where it is constantly monitored with AI. Remember that terrible case in Memphis where five police officers lynched a citizen? Well, that couldn’t happen because it would be broadcast live to police headquarters. Everyone would see it. The body cameras would stream the footage.
The police will behave better because we are constantly recording and monitoring everything that happens.
Citizens will also behave better because we record and report everything that happens. And that is inevitable. Cars also have cameras.
We also use AI to process and analyze the video. Regarding the Memphis incident, the police chief would have been immediately alerted. It’s not people who watch the cameras: AI watches the camera and says, “no, no, no, you can’t do that.” In case of a shooting, an alarm would have been triggered.
All police officers will be constantly monitored. If there is a problem, the AI will inform the appropriate person, whether it’s the sheriff, the chief, or whoever needs to take control of the situation.
We also have drones. If something happens at a shopping mall, a drone will fly there. It’s much faster than a police car. There’s no reason for high-speed chases. It would make much more sense to track a car with a drone. It’s very simple.
The new generation of autonomous drones can detect wildfires and heat. A drone detects a wildfire, then lands and inspects to see if there is a human near that heat source, if there is an unattended campfire that has burned, or if it’s an arson fire. We can detect all of that. All of this is done autonomously with AI. All these applications are AI applications.
One last example: using satellite imagery, we can identify all the farms in Morocco or Kenya, for instance. Based on this data, processed by AI, we can know whether the northern or southern part of a field needs more water or more fertilizer. We can anticipate grain shortages after a drought and alert the agricultural authorities of that country in time. The world will be a better place if we take advantage of the opportunities offered by AI.
(…)
We want to have Oracle data centers in every major city in the world, in every country in the world.
We also want to create clouds on airplanes and submarines. For submarines it’s more complicated, but for airplanes there’s no problem.
(…)
Without human labor, there is no human malice, no human error, no human costs.
Aaron Schwartz is a journalist and political analyst known for his work on technology, surveillance, and global power dynamics. He contributes regularly to international publications and think tanks, offering in-depth analysis on the intersection of tech innovation, state control, and geopolitical strategy.
by Le Grand Continent | Jun 8, 2025 | News
The first European head of state to oppose, in a direct and structured manner, the imperial project taking shape since the new Silicon Valley entered the White House with Donald Trump is an 83-year-old Sicilian Christian Democrat.
The President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, delivered a speech today in Marseille in which he denounced the “happy vassalization.”
In Meloni’s Italy, at a time when the President of the Council seems increasingly aligned with Trump and Musk, the Quirinale sought to draw clear red lines by posing a structural question: “Does Europe intend to be the object of international rivalry, a zone of influence for others, or instead become a subject of international politics, affirming the values of its own civilization? Can it accept being caught between oligarchies and autocracies?”
Sergio Mattarella set a course: “At most, with the prospect of a ‘happy vassalization,’ we must choose: to be ‘protected’ or to be ‘protagonists’?”
Elaborating on the concept of techno-caesarism, he warned of “the emergence of the new neo-feudal lords of the third millennium — these new privateers to whom patents can be attributed — who aspire to be entrusted with lordships in the public sphere and to manage parts of the commons represented by cyberspace and outer space, becoming almost usurpers of democratic sovereignty.”
It is not the first time the President of the Republic has sharply criticized Elon Musk.
In November, Mattarella had firmly responded to a campaign by the owner of X, who questioned the independence of the Italian judiciary after a Roman court refused to validate the transfer of migrants to Albania.
In a statement unusually strong for the often highly institutional communications from the Quirinale, the President of the Italian Republic reminded that “Italy is a great democratic country […] that knows how to take care of itself,” and denounced any foreign interference, referring to Musk’s expected role as an advisor under the Trump administration: “Anyone, especially if, as announced, they are about to assume an important government role in a friendly and allied country, must respect its sovereignty and cannot presume to issue directives to it.”
In response to this particularly firm stance, Musk sent a message to the ANSA agency affirming his respect for Mattarella and the Italian Constitution, while defending his right to freedom of expression.
Is this proof that — as Mike Tyson would have said — “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”?
Mr. President of the University,
Mr. Rector of the Academy,
Mr. Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science,
Mr. Director of the Institut Portalis,
Ladies and Gentlemen, Deans and Professors,
Dear Students,
It is truly a privilege for me to receive the honorary doctorate from this prestigious university, one of the leading academic institutions in France.
I would like to thank the President, Professor Eric Berton, Professor Jean-Baptiste Perrier, Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science, and the entire academic staff and personnel. I would also like to express my gratitude for your daily commitment to the dissemination of knowledge.
France and Italy enjoy a relationship of geographical, cultural, and civil proximity that constitutes a valuable asset on which friendly states can rely in the geopolitical landscape, especially at this moment in time. The Quirinal Treaty has recently confirmed this.
Marseille, in turn, embodies the full expression of this: it is the emblem and the layering of the Mediterranean civilization that unites us. A Mediterranean that has connected peoples since antiquity, and which today is not without its critical aspects.
I acknowledge the Student Conference COP4 which, in the coming days, will focus on the Mediterranean crisis, a sign of the awareness of the younger generations.
Friendship and closeness also mean shared responsibility and commitment to face challenges of such alarming proportions.
A university like this one, where we study history and law in order to have the tools to understand and manage the present and the future, is the right place to reflect on the state of international relations and on the state of the order our countries have helped to define.
Allow me to continue in Italian.
The above words were spoken in French by the President of the Italian Republic. From this point on, the text is translated from Italian.
An international order that, like all social contracts and all political structures, reaffirms its function and confirms its stability if it is nourished by commitment, developing the ability to listen, adapt, and cooperate in the face of emerging phenomena.
History, particularly that of the twentieth century, has taught us that this order is a dynamic entity, subject to balances that are, of course, not immune to political tensions and economic changes.
Often, the imbalances that arise have distant roots: in the aftermath of past conflicts. Or they correspond to the impulses and ambitions of actors who believe they can play the game under new and more favorable conditions: the waning limiting effect of potential reactions from the international community in the past, and the emergence of growing disillusionment with the mechanisms of cooperation in crisis management. These instruments were created to respond to the uncontrollable pressure to reopen situations that had previously been resolved diplomatically.
The life of the institutions that emerged in the decades following the Second World War, marked by sudden setbacks and disappointments, has unfortunately not been able to demonstrate all of its potential effectiveness.
The use of vetoes within the Security Council has on several occasions prevented the UN from deploying its peacekeeping efforts, but nevertheless, what it has been able to achieve has been a great success.
Its critics often forget, among other things, its crucial role in the decolonization process or in the development of a regulatory framework to curb military escalation and promote disarmament.
When considering the future of the international order, it is essential to recall the sequence of events, actions, and inactions that led to the tragedy of the Second World War, in the face of the geopolitical uncertainties that characterize our world today.
History is not meant to be slavishly repeated. But we never stop learning from the mistakes made throughout it.
The global economic crisis of 1929 shook the foundations of the world economy and fueled a spiral of protectionism and unilateralism as alliances eroded. Free trade has always been an element of understanding and connection. Many states failed to understand the need to face this crisis in a coherent manner, relying solely on visions inherited from the 19th century, focusing on the national dimension, and depending at most on the resources of enslaved peoples abroad.
Authoritarian phenomena then took hold in some countries, lured by the myth that despotic and illiberal regimes were more effective at protecting national interests.
The result was the emergence of an increasingly conflictual —rather than cooperative— environment, despite the awareness that problems needed to be tackled and resolved on a larger scale. Instead of cooperation, the criterion of domination prevailed. And the era of wars of conquest was reopened.
This was the Third Reich’s plan for Europe.
Today’s Russian aggression against Ukraine is of this very nature.
We are also witnessing the return of protectionism. Just a few days ago in Davos, the President of the European Commission reminded us that global trade barriers had tripled in value in 2024 alone.
The economic crisis, protectionism, mistrust among global actors, and the imposition of voluntary rules dealt a definitive blow to the League of Nations, created after the First World War—already compromised by the non-participation of the United States, which, under President Wilson, had been one of its key initiators.
For the United States, this meant giving in to the temptation of isolationism. But the work of the League was not in vain: we owe it, for example, the Convention on Slavery, which sought to abolish the slave trade—and this was in 1926.
In the fragile context of the interwar years, marked by a grim rise in nationalism, alarming trends of rearmament, and competition among states—according to the logic of spheres of influence—there were about twenty cases of withdrawal from the League of Nations.
Germany, with Hitler in the Chancellery, withdrew in 1933. Japan did the same. Italy also withdrew in 1937. These last two countries—along with France, the British Empire, and Germany itself—were permanent members of the League of Nations Council.
Collaboration: Le Grand Continent.
© FRANCESCO AMMENDOLA/UFFICIO PER LA STAMPA E LA COMUNICAZIONE DELLA PRESIDENZA DELLA REPUBBLICA
by Le Grand Continent | Jun 5, 2025 | News
The creator of ChatGPT believes the future is already being written. In a text with oracular tones, he describes the advent of a world transformed by AI: an Age of Intelligence. Behind this rhetoric, there is a plan. To convince investors while OpenAI is not yet profitable, Altman is taking a risk: a prophecy without a business plan
Imagine this: no more climate change, colonies in space; no more mystery, no more unknowns, no more obstacles. Life beyond all limits—planetary, climatic, cognitive. For Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI, this is not a dream but a prophecy: the arrival of an “Age of Intelligence” in which what human societies can achieve will be within the bounds of what today is magic.
The recipe is well known. It is a bewilderingly simple function: the more the algorithm is fed, the more precise it becomes. Essentially, what Sam Altman is explaining is that the Age of Intelligence, despite some small details to be polished, is within our reach if we enable mass adoption of AI.
But this vision of the future—presented literally as such—has a very real context: OpenAI faces a profitability problem.
For several weeks, Altman has been proposing to international economic players a plan to finance his new era, the details of which remain secret, but it is known to require an initial investment of at least several trillion dollars.
Criticized by TSMC executives who labeled him a “podcasting bro,” the new project of OpenAI’s founder seems to worry Washington. By planning the construction of dozens of new data centers with massive funding from Gulf States, is the creator of ChatGPT posing a threat to U.S. national security?
The pitch could be summarized like this: the technology to change the world exists; it can only improve society if it is significantly enhanced; but to improve the algorithm, a scale effect and infrastructure are necessary; for that, funding is required.
Beyond the Investor Sales Brochure, the Main Argument of This Text, we cannot understand the astonishing foundations of Sam Altman’s thinking without reading his writings and remembering that, for him, the truth of AI is Moore’s Law extended to everything.
In the coming decades, we will be capable of doing things that would have seemed like magic to our grandparents.
This is not a new phenomenon, but it is about to accelerate. Over time, human capabilities have increased considerably; today, we can already do things that our predecessors would have considered impossible.
This increase in our abilities is not due to genetic mutation. It has been possible because we benefit from society’s infrastructure, which is much smarter and more capable than any one of us. Society itself, in the broadest sense, is a form of advanced intelligence. Our grandparents and the generations before them built and achieved great things. They helped construct the scaffolding of human progress from which we all benefit. AI will give people the tools to solve difficult problems and help us reinforce that scaffolding with new pieces that we would not have been able to find on our own. The story of progress will continue, and our children will be able to do things we cannot.
It will not happen all at once. But soon we will be able to work with AI that helps us achieve much more than we could have without it; one day, everyone will be able to have a personal AI team made up of virtual experts in different fields, working together to create almost anything we can imagine. Our children will have virtual tutors capable of providing personalized education in any subject, in any language, and at any pace. It is up to us to imagine similar ideas to improve health, the ability to create all kinds of imaginable software, and much more.
With these new capabilities, we will be able to create shared prosperity to a degree that today seems unimaginable; in the future, everyone’s life can be better than it is now. Although prosperity itself does not necessarily make people happy—there are many unhappy rich people—it would significantly improve people’s lives worldwide.
Here is a rather limited way of looking at human history: after thousands of years of scientific discoveries and technological advances, we have found a way to fuse sand, add some impure elements, arrange it with astonishing precision at an extraordinarily small scale to manufacture chips, run energy through it, and obtain systems capable of creating increasingly powerful artificial intelligences.
This could become the most important event in history to date. We might have superintelligence in a few thousand days (!!); it might take longer, but I am convinced we will get there.
How have we reached the threshold of the next leap forward in prosperity?
In two words: deep learning.
In short: deep learning has worked, it has predictably improved as it has scaled, and we have devoted more and more resources to it.
It’s that simple. Humanity has discovered an algorithm truly capable of learning any data distribution or, better said, the “rules” underlying any data distribution. With a surprising degree of accuracy, the more computations and data available, the better the algorithm can help people solve difficult problems. It seems to me that no matter how long I think about it, I never fully grasp the full importance of this matter.
There are still many details to resolve. But it would be a mistake to get distracted by a specific challenge. Deep learning works and we will solve the remaining problems. There is much to say about what might happen next. The main thing is that AI will improve as it scales, which will bring significant improvements to the lives of people around the world.
AI models will soon serve as autonomous personal assistants performing specific tasks on our behalf, such as coordinating healthcare. A time will come when AI systems will be so powerful that they will help us improve next-generation systems and make scientific advances in all fields.
Technology has taken us from the Stone Age to the birth of agriculture and then to the industrial era. From there, the path to the Age of Intelligence is paved with computation, energy, and human will.
If we want to make AI accessible to as many people as possible, we need to reduce the cost of computation and make it abundant, which requires a lot of energy and chips. In other words, if we don’t build enough infrastructure, AI will be a very limited resource that will be subject to wars and will mainly become a tool for the rich.
So we must act prudently but also with conviction. The arrival of the Age of Intelligence is a momentous event that brings very complex challenges and extremely high stakes. History will not be entirely positive, but the potential is so enormous that we need, now and in the future, to find ways to manage the risks we face.
The future is so bright that no one will do it justice trying to write it now; a defining feature of the Age of Intelligence will be massive prosperity.
Although this will be achieved gradually, astonishing triumphs—solving the climate issue, establishing a colony in space, and discovering all physics—will eventually become commonplace. With almost unlimited intelligence and abundant energy—the capacity to generate great ideas and the possibility of making them real—we can do many things.
As we have seen with other technologies, there will also be downsides, and we must start working now to maximize the benefits of AI and minimize its drawbacks. For example, we expect this technology to drive significant changes in labor markets, both positively and negatively, in the coming years. But most jobs will change more slowly than we think, and I am not worried that we will run out of things to do, even though what we do in the future may not resemble what we now consider “real jobs.” People have an innate desire to create and to be useful to others. And AI will allow us to expand our own capabilities like never before. As a society, we will once again be in an expanding world and will be able to focus again on positive-sum games.
Many of the jobs we do today would have been considered insignificant wastes of time by people a few hundred years ago. Yet no one looks back and wishes they had been a lamplighter. If a lamplighter could see today’s world, they would think the prosperity around them is unimaginable. If we could fast forward a hundred years from today, the prosperity surrounding us would seem just as unimaginable.
