Last week was certainly a "turning point"

The big surprise to me is that the U.S. has become a country that cannot resist the power of a dictator and a relatively small but strategic collection of billionaires and political fanatics... and we just sit back and passively watch not just the legacy of the nation disappear, but the future.

OMG, you might think. Things aren't that bad. Come on. This too shall pass. 

Yes, history will march on. I suppose I mostly worry about what sort of nation our grandkids will live in. And I am well aware that this sort of existential despair has characterized countless generations before me, each of them bemoaning their youngers and their diminished morality or pride or energy.

I also vividly remember the chaos and anger and outright violence of the 1960s, but what I don't remember is having a sense that the country was played out and too broken to repair. 

Or maybe it's just my own revisionist history at work. 

Honestly, there is no reason to fear a future dictatorship in America, like a dystopian science fiction novel from the '50s. 

The dictatorship is here, right now, though it's a uniquely American dictatorship due to our history and the sheer numbers of Americans: over 340 million. 

The details are being created as we speak and the triumph of anti-intellectuals and anti-science and anti-immigrant and anti-brown people and anti-... well, you name it. We are immersed in hate and at least some of the blame has to be placed on billionaires in Silicon Valley and their social media monsters.

When social media was invented - what, 20 years ago? - there were all sort of possibilities for those disposed to be optimistic and idealistic. Just imagine all the connections and the interchanges and tightening of communities that social media COULD offer.

What was less common and ultimately ignored was not possibilities, but probabilities. After all, there are all sorts of possible great outcomes. But human nature is what it is and the probabilities, mostly for bad outcomes, were shrugged off... and now we live amidst the social media catastrophe.

I suspect that AI is now similar to those early social media days. Sure there are possibilities that artificial intelligence will produce limitless benefits, from wealth to health to freedom. The probabilities, though, are that human greed and ignorance will combine to create probabilities that are much darker.

We live in perilous times... and maybe that is true for every generation. But AI looks to be many orders of magnitude more powerful than social media and is not only driving the world economy but expanding in reach and capability faster than any other new technology.

We are not ready for it. We were not ready for the brazenness of Trump and his minions. We were not ready for the national carelessness and greed and sheer hate to be unleashed so quickly.

But here we are.