Welcome, America, to the Thunderdome of AI oversight.
President Trump has dropped his executive order, placing responsibility on federal agencies to determine whether private corporate products are safe for public consumption. The National Security Agency is central to this plan, with the intelligence community establishing classified benchmarks, vetting, and gatekeeping new AI models within a 30-day window. Private-sector entities and stakeholders—including AI companies themselves—must wait passively for decisions.
This move lacks strong support from conservatives, the “based community,” or even narrowly defined MAGA supporters. Former White House AI and crypto chief David Sacks’ attempt to halt Trump’s AI agenda only delayed implementation and narrowed the oversight window. On X, Sacks emphasized aspects the order fails to address that he and the right-wing accelerationist faction oppose.
Is there anything we can instruct these machines to do without diminishing our humanity?
Even within Trump’s inner circle, disagreements will persist.
Congress is grappling with OpenAI’s approach, which relies on the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation. This method involves oversight and testing conducted by established bodies that bridge government and industry through public-private partnerships, enabling AI companies and external experts to participate in evaluation.
Yet Congress remains sharply divided, and upcoming midterm elections could shift power dynamics. Draft legislation, including the bipartisan American Leadership in AI Act, hinges on complex political maneuvers—ranging from Louisiana Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to reauthorize the House AI Task Force to rank-and-file Democrats’ unfavorable stance toward the bill.
Can both chambers of Congress agree on AI model development and testing? A bill Trump would not veto? Probably not. With anti-AI sentiment intensifying across populist factions of both parties, principled members and ambitious lawmakers are likely to act before November.
This means Americans will not find clarity on AI from their elected representatives.
The doomer delusion
Pope Leo XIV has issued a landmark encyclical asserting—alongside many Christians—that no law or regulation can ensure the United States government (or anyone) maintains sufficient control over AI to protect human dignity.
Yet there is little indication that America’s Christians, let alone the global community, will unite behind the pope’s vision or view him as the sole spiritual authority on AI and technology.
This means neither political leaders nor religious figures will provide Americans with the guidance they increasingly seek.
Perhaps this is actually beneficial because the core risk of AI is not human extinction but the loss of all human power except for a tiny cyborg elite determined to reshape every aspect of God’s creation—including each individual.
Paradoxically, responding to this risk by amplifying tech fear and consolidating such fears into an ultra-powerful elite increases the risk of both human extinction and deepening the elite’s belief that failure to achieve radical change means a worse fate than death.
Given the dangers of over-centralized oversight on one hand and a regulatory war on the other, now is a critical time to consider whether Bitcoin offers ordinary people a more balanced, distributed, and practical path forward.
In today’s fractured crypto world, Bitcoin’s case in the AI age is straightforward: If we cannot dismantle these systems and if people continue building more powerful ones, can we direct them toward preserving rather than diminishing human dignity?
The answer is clearly yes. Yet the combination of widespread fear over techno-dystopia and resistance to “organized religion” traps many in a psychological corner where no solution seems viable.
That’s regrettable. Bitcoin stands ready as an advanced technology that enables individuals with minimal new information or expertise to build markets and institutions benefiting themselves, their families, and communities without relying on superintelligent machines or government financial systems.
Given the clear tendency of superintelligent machines and government financial systems to converge into a single system enforcing global uniformity and servitude, it is urgent for people to take steps outside their comfort zones and begin using Bitcoin with those they care about most.
That’s why I continue to offer my book on our tech reckoning, Human Forever, exclusively in Bitcoin. Accumulating digital currency while waiting for nirvana does not address the challenges of societal collapse, an age of mandatory abundance, or a mutant future that blends both into a waking nightmare. Using Bitcoin must go beyond books.
As a writer, I am putting my money where my mouth is.
Is it enough to solve all our problems with machines and each other? Obviously, no. But it might refocus attention on preserving human ways of life that open paths not just to solutions but to salvation.
James Poulos is the editor at large of Blaze Media, the host of Zero Hour on BlazeTV, and the founder and editorial director of Return.
