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ENBy Omar Sy7 min

When the powerful no longer need us

In July, a Russian drone flew toward a gas station in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. It crashed into a nearby wall and exploded, killing a university student and two other people. In the wreckage, Ukrainian officials found a small AI computer that let the drone find its target and strike on its own (Al Jazeera). An expert told The New York Times it was likely the first documented case of civilians killed by a Russian drone that chose its own target (NYT, reprinted by The Boston Globe).

This story is not only about war. It shows machines starting to do a job that always needed a person. And if the powerful stop needing people, the world could change in a way we have never seen.

Power has always needed people

Every powerful person in history had the same weakness: they needed other people. A king needed soldiers to fight and farmers to feed them. A factory owner needed workers, and a government needs people who work, pay taxes and follow its rules.

In a democracy, leaders also need our votes. But votes protect us only while elections stay free and money does not decide them.

That need was our protection. When workers stopped working, factories stopped. When soldiers refused to shoot, regimes fell, and even the cruelest rulers had to keep enough people fed, paid and loyal.

So power was never only about money or weapons. It was a deal, often an unfair one, between the few who rule and the many they need.

AI and robots could break that need

AI is learning to do thinking work: writing, coding, planning, answering customers. Robots are learning physical work: carrying boxes, building cars, and perhaps one day guarding streets. Together they could do the work, and even use force, with almost no people.

Machines have replaced work before, and new jobs came. But those machines still needed people to run them. AI and robots are being built to do that work too.

If you owned machines like that, you would no longer need workers, soldiers or taxpayers. The old deal breaks, because if the many refuse to work or fight, the machines keep going.

Some say companies will always need us as customers. But oil states sell most of their oil abroad, so they do not need their own people as buyers. Machine owners could also sell mostly to each other and to governments.

Economists know a version of this already: the resource curse. Countries that live on oil often neglect their people, because the state’s money comes from the ground, not from the people’s work. Luke Drago and Rudolf Laine call the AI version The Intelligence Curse: a world where powerful states and companies “no longer have an incentive to care about regular people.”

Not every oil state does this. Norway puts its oil money into a fund run for all Norwegians, now and in the future (NBIM). So the curse is not automatic. Good laws and shared ownership can help a country avoid it.

Who owns the machines

Only a few players can afford to build this. This year Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft plan to spend more than $700 billion on new infrastructure, much of it for AI (Sherwood News). That is more than the whole economy of most countries (IMF).

Robots are on the same path. In its latest quarterly update, Tesla said it has started producing its Optimus humanoid robots in California (Tesla). It plans an eventual capacity of one million robots a year (Tesla).

So the machines that could replace our work, and maybe our soldiers, may end up owned by a handful of companies, the billionaires who lead them, and a few strong states. I am not saying these people are villains. I am saying that if they stop needing us, nothing in the old deal would force them to keep caring about us.

What the news shows

Beyond the drone in Ukraine, here is what the news showed this year:

  • Armies are putting AI first. The US Defense Secretary has ordered the military to put AI at the center of how it fights, and announced a new command to speed up the use of drones and AI in war (NPR).
  • AI is this year’s top stated reason for job cuts. By the end of September, US employers had cited AI for 120,136 job cuts this year, about 21% of all cuts (Challenger). These are the reasons companies give, not proof, and in September AI was only the fifth most-cited reason.
  • Tech money is shaping politics. Seven of the 20 biggest donors in the 2026 US elections for Congress have major ties to crypto, AI or online gambling, and together gave about $377 million (CNBC). Meanwhile, AI companies are fighting over how Washington will regulate them.

Each story alone proves little. Together they point one way: more of the work and the weapons moving to machines, and more political power for tech money.

What keeps power spread out

This future is a risk, not a certainty. Power concentrates most easily when the tools concentrate too, and we still have ways to spread them:

  • Open models. When anyone can download a strong AI model and run it on their own computer, intelligence is not owned only by a few.
  • Decentralized systems. Blockchains like gno.land let people control their own accounts. And because the code is public, anyone can read the rules they live under. Rules in public code are harder for a few people to change in secret. But a blockchain does not spread power by itself. Crypto has made some people rich and powerful too: crypto companies and investors are among the biggest donors in the 2026 US elections (CNBC).
  • Laws and limits. In the US Senate, the Armed Services Committee added provisions to the defense bill that would require human oversight of AI-controlled weapons (NPR).
  • Shared ownership. If machines create huge wealth, the question is who owns them: a few founders, or also workers, cooperatives and the public.

The goal is simple. Keep people necessary. And when they are not, make sure power still has to listen to them.

What to watch

When you read the news, ask one simple question: does this make the powerful need ordinary people more, or less?

A new robot factory, a new AI weapon, more tech money in an election: each of these can make them need us less. An open model that anyone can download, or a law that keeps humans in control, can do the opposite: it keeps power in more hands.

I can’t know what billionaires really want, and I don’t need to. In some countries that live on oil, rulers don’t need their people’s work or taxes, and they stop listening to them. We still have time to choose a different path: machines that serve everyone, not only the people who own them.

What do you see in the news where you live? Tell me in my guestbook.

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