The AI pandemic

Better a war against Russia than unrest caused by the pandemic?

The impetus for this paper was an article by Florian Harms on t-online. In it, he refers to videos from China in which people perform kung fu dances together with robots or demonstrate their kung fu skills. Watching this can be extremely inspiring: here and here. The fact that robots can interact autonomously with humans without protective barriers and are becoming increasingly human in their mobility are real breakthroughs.

This goes hand in hand with rapid developments in the field of artificial intelligence. While it took 35 to 40 years from Konrad Zuse's Z3 in 1941 to the home computers from Apple, Commodore, and IBM in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and it took 10 to 15 years to go from word processing with WordStar in the late 1970s to the mass-market product Word for Windows in the early 1990s, it took just over three years after the release of ChatGPT in November 2022 – which led to 100 million users within two months – to establish a commercial basis for agent-based and multimodal systems that are already having a significant impact on the world of work. The article mentioned above refers to the thesis of Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, according to which most of the tasks performed by lawyers, accountants, and other desk-based professions will be "completely automated by AI in the next 12 to 18 months."

The consequences of this hype are already apparent and give us an idea of what lies ahead. It doesn't take much imagination to say that jobs will be destroyed like flies. While all the experts we have in abundance discussed AI as a means of alleviating a shortage of skilled workers, it is already becoming apparent that AI is eating away at the jobs of skilled workers and will continue to do so. SAP plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs, ERGO around 1,000 by 2030, Lufthansa 4,000 in administration, and Allianz Partners 1,500 to 1,800 jobs in the next 12 to 18 months. India (1, 2) and the US are relevant examples of how the IT industry is not immune to these drastic cuts, with employees at Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and IBM being particularly affected last year. Added to this are job cuts that cannot be directly linked to AI: 35,000 at VW by 2030, more than 20,000 at BOSCH by 2030, 7,600 at ZF, and 2,800 at Schaeffler.

But that is only the beginning. In India, 500,000 jobs are at risk among the 3.67 million people employed in the IT sector over the next three years. Goldman Sachs sees 300 million jobs at risk worldwide and believes that two-thirds of 900 occupations are susceptible to automation through AI, with a quarter to half of their workload potentially being replaced. In an analysis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that around 60 percent of jobs in advanced economies could be affected by AI. While the technology means increased productivity for half of these jobs, the other half are at risk of being replaced. The ifo Institute confirms this for the German market: more than one in four companies (27.1 percent) expect to cut jobs due to AI in the next five years. I leave it to the reader to consider how this will affect future poverty reports, life expectancy, purchasing power, tax revenues, government transfer payments, price stability, the ability to invest in areas critical to the future, the exodus of highly qualified workers, pensions, the real estate market, the social climate, and the free democratic basic order in general.

The next few years will be marked by an unprecedented arms race in AI. Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft will invest $500 billion this year alone, and in China, the figure could reach $1.4 trillion over the next six years. In Germany, too, there will be large-scale investment in AI infrastructure, cloud services, and data centers, primarily so that American technologies can tap into the German market. But there is no social response to this development.

I can claim to have been discussing the inevitability of this development for quite some time. It must have been before the turn of the millennium when two images became an integral part of my imagination – they influenced the development of the MIRAKEL reading machine – and they also found their way into my aphorisms for the humanization of the ape (see also Digitalization: Will humans become robots with DNA?), in which I discuss the necessity of civilizational innovations – linked to the Sixth Kondratieff – if we want to enable humanity to have a human future and the West to maintain its competitiveness.

The image of a three-class society does not differentiate between rich and poor or knowledgeable and ignorant, but describes how

there are fewer and fewer people who are able to influence technological progress and uphold the standard: to make a contribution in the context of cold fusion. There is a second, larger group of people who are able to use technological progress to secure and develop their competitiveness: operating a lathe, writing software, and much more. This group is also tending to become smaller. And then there is the growing remainder.

As a society, we must strive to provoke upward development. However, there is a lack of sensitivity and even more so a lack of concepts. If you will, this is the further development of the idea that we do not have universal scholars.

And then there is the image of the ceiling. We in the developed countries are much closer to the ceiling than the others. We notice that the air is getting thinner and see this as a problem. But we are already there and can use the time until the others catch up with us.

Several decades have now passed without us using the time to further develop our civilization and prepare ourselves for the challenges of the future. This starts with education. Although the proportion of the population with a university entrance qualification and completed vocational training or a degree has risen, cognitive skills have declined. Dr. Jens Brandenburg, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, explained:

The findings of the PISA study are worrying. The data show a general decline in performance levels. The correlation between social background and educational success remains strong in Germany, especially when compared with other OECD countries.

Anyone who assumes that Germany, as one of the most innovative countries in the world – we have now fallen to 11th place in the UN's Global Innovation Index (GII) 2025, down from 2nd place in 2007 – would now invest heavily in the education of its population and in strengthening human capital is mistaken. According to an OECD report from September 2024, Germany is underperforming with 4.6% of GDP compared to the OECD average of 4.9% for educational institutions from primary schools to universities. Given the rising proportion of children with a migrant background – which stood at 39% in 2022 – this is particularly serious. Increases in education spending are primarily driven by rising student numbers and personnel costs. There is not even any awareness of the need for a "turning point" in response to developments in the field of AI, and if you want to counter the trend, you will find yourself talking to deaf ears – as I have learned the hard way.

Germany has other priorities. While spending on education and research in the current budget is down 3.1% to €21.82 billion, defense spending is up 10.2% to €83.00 billion. But that's not all: there's also €26 billion from the special fund and €25 to €30 billion related to Ukraine. In view of such figures, it is not surprising that the German population is to be made "fit for war" again and trained to fear Russia. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius

We must be fit for war by 2029. [...] We must deter to prevent the worst from happening

and the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, General Carsten Breuer,

We also see that not everything that is produced or taken out of storage goes to the Ukrainian front, but also to newly created military structures. In five to eight years, Russia will have renewed its military to such an extent that an attack on NATO territory could be possible. For us, this means that we must focus on 2029. By then, at the latest, we must be ready to defend ourselves against a possible Russian attack.

are examples of this. The fact that NATO countries' defense spending exceeds Russia's by more than eleven times is irrelevant.

Western obsession is not only focused on Russia, but also on China in particular. However, in the book mentioned above, I describe China's development since 1949, when it had an illiteracy rate of 80% and a life expectancy of 35 years – and between 1958 and 1962 experienced the greatest famine in human history, which according to various estimates claimed between 15 and 55 million lives, and  was also confronted with the Cultural Revolution, which claimed up to 20 million victims – characterized as humanity's greatest civilizational achievement, which was linked in particular to the strengthening of human capital, I see a political achievement that is partly responsible for China's increasing proximity to the West in recent decades: the maintenance of the Taiwan issue. With it, China caters to the aggressive nature of Western democracies, which use this justification to pour trillions of dollars into military capital – which in turn increases national debt ratios. These funds are lacking in the strengthening of human capital – which is also due to the fact that human beings are regarded as objects of economic exploitation rather than as ends in themselves. It is tragic that – to put it bluntly – even we stupid Germans are playing along with this game and have the impression that our freedom is being defended not only in the Hindu Kush and Ukraine – and soon in the Arctic – but also in the Pacific.

In addition to inadequate education and the focus on armament, the general treatment of the population is important when it comes to the question of how to keep pace with technological progress and the AI boom. The aspect of freedom of expression belongs in this context. The various forms of restriction aimed at ensuring that a monocultural, Russophobic, dumbed-down population is sufficiently incapable of standing in the way of militarization on the path to war with Russia have a number of side effects. They restrict the cognitive diversity that is essential for an innovative country like Germany and reinforce the climate of silence and acceptance that is already deeply rooted in society with regard to aspects that people are intellectually capable of recognizing as wrong or even reprehensible, but are unable to oppose. The emissions scandal, which has already cost the German economy over €40 billion, and all the scandals at Deutsche Bank, which has lost over €20 billion since 2000 as a result, show where this climate can lead. But it becomes existential in relation to my thesis, expressed several times at the beginning of last year, that the recent federal election would be a referendum on Germany's path to war. A year later, I have the impression that we have come a long way down this path.

Be human, said the idealist.

But the small-minded, driven by greed and accustomed to subservience,

was more interested in weapons and silence

than values and action.

My personal experiences at all levels of society, as well as my analyses, reinforce the thesis of the systemic relevance of this observation: The social constitution is such that it is increasingly impossible to enable society to think #modernly with #modernThinking, in order to face the actual challenges of our time in a consensual and capable manner so that they can be overcome sustainably for the benefit of the population. Without civilizational progress, this will not be possible, but the truth is that nowhere, absolutely nowhere, can any political will be found for this – at least not by me.

In view of this, must we not ask ourselves whether the German – and with it the European – elites prefer a war against Russia to the consequences of an AI pandemic-induced collapse of the social system because they fear civilizational progress and can blame Russia for a war in front of their own population, as was already the case in Ukraine? It is irrelevant whether the underlying reasons for the Russophobic militarization since the "turning point" can be seen as directly causally related to this context: what is decisive is that developments, particularly in Germany, are leading to these two alternatives in line with political decisions. All other extremely important challenges—education, innovation, demographics, social inequality—are singular and reinforcing constraints in light of this.

Since I hope that attentive readers will understand that one of the driving forces behind this work is Christoph Lichtenberg's perspective, I would like to conclude with a perspective that, based on this hope, provides a logical connection, as it attempts to take an outside view of our current actions. Germany should not waste its time and resources fighting its phantom pains, but should instead face the relevant challenges that will determine its position in the near future. To do this, it must strengthen its human capital: otherwise, it will become a relic of history.

Master, how do we defeat the enemy?

Well, by doing nothing—except waiting.

While we develop our strengths,

it develops its weaknesses.

While we allow the sources of life to flow freely,

he lets them dry up.

While we are water,

he becomes hard as stone.

While we control the direction,

he controls the directions.

While he talks about freedom,

we take the liberty.

The enemy defeats itself, and

the flood will pour over the stones.

The AI pandemic.pdf

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