Social Media and AI Are Robbing Us of Personal Connections

A young 19-year-old woman sits in her dorm room holding a smart phone.

The college student has hundreds of Instagram followers and a favorite AI chatbot. The bot remembers her favorite songs, offers endless reassurances, and never disputes or disagrees.

Each night she goes through the same ritual, texting into the wee hours. Although for weeks she hasn’t met with anyone in person, she is convinced that she is indeed socializing. But the truth is she is totally alone.

This scene is in no way unique. Instead it has become the default for millions of young people.

Social media and AI chatbots are not just providing methods for making life easier. They are systematically replacing the sometimes challenging, emotionally risky, high-stakes effort of forming human relationships.

The result is a quiet but accelerating crisis of isolation that threatens mental health, family formation, and the fundamentals of society.

The United States is in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. Too many young people are spending less time building relationships, which have historically defined adulthood, created the closest of friendships, spawned romantic partnerships, and facilitated continuous face-to-face interaction.

The problem is growing wider and deeper. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General designated social isolation as a public health epidemic, which is linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and reduced life expectancy.

Back when social media platforms first arrived on the scene, they paved a path toward isolation. Platforms that were optimized for attention quickly transformed conventional social comparisons into algorithmic activities.

Young users frequently scrolled through highlight reels and oftentimes came to the conclusion that their lives were inadequate. Posting for self-validation purposes as opposed to engagement with others became the norm for many individuals.

Impressionable minds learned that brief dopamine hits from received “likes” resulted in positive experiences.

This often stood in stark contrast to another experience; that of being engaged in genuine conversation but risking disapproval and/or rejection from other participants.

The latter case may explain why actual face-to-face time among young people declined.

Then along came AI chatbots. These were not just neutral assistants. Companion-style AIs were explicitly fashioned to simulate emotional intimacy.

Think about it. The chatbots are always dependable, extremely attentive, and never judgmental in the way real-life human beings can be.

For adolescents and young people, especially those who are already primed by social media to avoid rejection, the appeal is obvious.

Early data and user reports indicate that every day a rising numbers of teens and young adults are now spending hours in extended role-play and emotional conversation with chatbots. Some even describe the exchanges as their “main relationship.”

The chatbot provides the illusion of being known, minus any kind of reciprocal obligation.

What is truly disturbing is that young people are gradually losing the ability to build authentic relationships, because all too often they are foregoing human interaction for digital substitutes.

If they only knew how wonderfully fulfilling true human relationships can be. Challenging at times, yes, but so worth the investment.

Interestingly, relationships have the potential to become stronger when exposed to friction. In contrast, friction-less interaction may result in underdeveloped emotional muscles.

Surveys and demographic trends show Gen Z and younger cohorts are reporting fewer close friendships, lower rates of dating, and delayed milestones of partnership, when compared to prior generations of the same age.

Multiple national surveys document that loneliness among young adults is rising as digital “connection” metrics explode. And unfortunately, anxiety and depression rates have climbed.

On a hopeful note, experiments that reduce the use of social media consistently demonstrate improvements in mood and social functioning.

Society’s family structure is dependent upon adults who are capable of sustaining long-term commitments. And our workplace environment is dependent on adults who possess the much-needed interpersonal communication and conflict resolution skills.

Many are wondering if anything can be done to reverse the anti-personal, anti-social trend.

Here are a few suggestions:

– Social media companies can alter algorithms.

– AI developers can choose not to market companion bots as emotional substitutes.

– Parents and school administrators can treat screen time as a public-health issue.

– Individuals can come to the knowledge that convenience is not the same as fulfillment.

– Young people can tap into the courage within to make real connections.

The truth is we alldesperately need each other.

We simply can’t live without human companionship.

The time has come to seriously reduce our collective screen activity and make more human connections.

What folks of all ages are likely to discover is that real life beats virtual life every time.

Radical Leftist Democrats Are Following a Communist Script

Recent primary victories by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles are being hailed in certain left-wing circles as some sort of a grassroots movement, when it’s anything but.

Those familiar with the wretchedness of communism have for years been doing their best to sound the alarm bells about the ideological seepage that has been occurring in our own country.

In a way, the DSA victories are serving a purpose in that more and more influential political and media figures are beginning to speak out about the dangers of veiled communist constructs and their inevitable road to ruin.

The philosophical playbooks, which the recent candidates and potential officeholders embrace, mirror the early stages that transformed previously free societies into economic and humanitarian catastrophes.

It may not be an exact replay of history’s songbook, but the anti-liberty refrain is eerily familiar. In the name of equality, activists pursue ideas about concentrating economic power.

If we look at communist countries prior to their becoming glorified prison camps, each experienced a state-controlled takeover of healthcare, energy, housing, and wages, usually accompanied by the fomenting of hostility to private enterprise, a redistribution of wealth, and a continuous erosion of individual freedom.

Venezuela is one of the more modern examples. Its tilt toward communism didn’t begin with tanks in the streets. It started with the holding of elections.

In 1998, Hugo Chávez was democratically elected on the promise of being a fighter of poverty and corporate greed. He called his platform “21st Century Socialism.”

He quickly nationalized the oil, steel, and food industries, imposing price controls, currency restrictions, and massive wealth transfers. Communism had slithered its way into a once-free country.

Supporters hailed the new way of life as empowering the people against the wealthy. Within a brief time period major production collapsed, shortages appeared, hyperinflation exceeded one million percent at peaks, and GDP cratered.

Millions fled, opposition leaders were jailed, and media were muzzled. What started as popular redistribution required an ever-greater coercion to sustain. What Nicolas Maduro inherited, he further hardened.

With regard to Russia, after 1917 the Bolsheviks promised land and bread. Factories and farms were seized under “war communism.” Then Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy gave way to Joseph Stalin’s total collectivization. The results were engineered famines, gulags, and a police state that murdered millions to enforce central planning.

China’s Maoists promised peasant liberation. The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution resulted in the deaths of millions from famine and purges, all the while private property and markets were being decimated.

Cuba’s Castro followers seized power. They promised democracy and justice, but turned around and built a tyrannical one-party system that practiced rationing, surveillance, and confiscation.

In each of the above cases, the initial pitch was the same: End exploitation, give power to the working class, and use the state as an instrument of justice.

The mechanism used was also the same: Replace voluntary exchange and dispersed knowledge with government allocation of resources.

When results were disappointing, and they consistently were, leaders blamed fake scapegoats such as saboteurs, foreign interference, or insufficient commitment to Marxist principles.

More power was demanded to fix what a prior power grab had broken. Liberty eroded bit by bit, and the system collapsed because it is impossible for central planners to replicate the information and incentives of free markets.

DSA platforms and candidates drape their major themes in American garb. Proposals such as “Medicare for All” and “Green New Deal” have them dreaming about massive new federal control over trillions in economic activity.

“Housing for All” and “Tenant Rights” campaigns end up being a means of imposing rent control, while restricting development and reducing supply.

Criticism of “corporate greed” and calls for the public ownership of businesses use the same twisted logic that was used to justify nationalizations in Moscow, Havana, Beijing, and Caracas.

For decades the United States has retained stronger constitutional guardrails, federalism, an armed citizenry, and a culture of individual rights, unlike nations that have succumbed to communism.

However, the trajectory of ideas in the leftward direction is particularly concerning for our country precisely because, more often than not, it is an incremental process.

Each step is typically defended as temporary and necessary. Each step makes reversal more difficult and failure more costly.

Americans who value prosperity and freedom should treat DSA advances, not as quaint democratic socialism but as the latest iteration of failed communist ideology.

The United States built its wealth and mobility on the opposite principles. Vigilance begins with a total rejection of the premise that concentrated political authority over production and distribution is superior to individual choice.

It’s best to listen to those who have suffered under leftist totalitarian regimes. They are sending us a message to immediately banish communism from our midst.

We fail to listen at our own peril.

Elon Musk Becoming a Trillionaire Is Something to Celebrate

Elon Musk just crossed a new threshold. He became the world’s first trillionaire. 

SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO turned out to be the largest in history, raising a record $75 billion. This resulted in Musk’s net worth being boosted past the $1.1 trillion mark. 

Musk’s company was able to raise a massive amount of funds by selling more than half a billion shares, which pushed the company’s market capitalization above $2.1 trillion. SpaceX instantly became one of the world’s most valuable public entities.

Predictably, the usual suspects in the liberal media and leftist political circles simultaneously began to furrow their brows.

In true hypocrite fashion, they bandied about phrases such as “wealth inequality” and “massive wealth transfer,” in an apparent effort to manufacture yet another victim class while fomenting class envy in the process.

Calls for the implementation of additional socialist (aka communist) policies came in from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), among others.

Railing against billionaires had already been going on, despite the personal wealth accumulation of so many of the left-leaning politicians and media analysts.

It could be that an unease over unearned wealth had for some resulted in projection, i.e., accusing others of what you yourself are guilty of.

Whatever the case, the ascent to trillionaire status on the part of Musk is, in truth, an amazing validation of the free market system.

In a capitalist system, visionaries, entrepreneurs, inventors, artists, etc., have free rein to flourish.

Sometimes they are financially rewarded for their skills, talents, and efforts. It’s a beautiful thing, because when they are rewarded for their contributions, a free society reaps the benefits as well.

The Musk model is a prime example. SpaceX isn’t just another rocket company. It has fundamentally rewritten the economics of space travel.

Reusable rockets, such as Falcon 9, have resulted in the slashing of launch costs from tens of millions to a few million per flight, making the access to orbit a routine occurrence rather than a rare government-subsidized one.

Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, has brought high-speed internet to remote corners of the globe, from war-torn locales and disaster zones to third-world rural villages, which has allowed millions who were previously cut off to actually connect.

SpaceX’s ambitions of Mars colonization, orbital data centers for AI, and a multi-planetary future, exhibit the kind of long-term, high-risk thinking that is the envy of the world.

The IPO itself democratizes gains through equity ownership. Over 4,400 SpaceX employees, including factory workers and engineers, turned company stock grants and options into life-changing wealth. Public shareholders now have a stake in humanity’s expansion beyond Earth.

What a cause for celebration! Instead many radical politicians and media pundits took to howling about the hoarding of wealth.

Free market proponents understand that breakthroughs have the potential to benefit everyone. Musk’s additional ventures provide perfect illustrations.

Tesla accelerated the EV transition, Neuralink pushed human-computer interfaces, and xAI is advancing safe artificial intelligence.

With each success there is a compounding effect drawing more talent, more investment, and more innovation.

Critics fixate on the amount, the actual number, and no doubt it’s a big one.

A trillion dollars.

However, naysayers generally tend to think of wealth as a single pie, with everyone vying for the biggest slice.

They’re just plain wrong. In a capitalist system in a country where people live in freedom, there’s no single pie.

Quite the opposite. There are as many pies as people dare to make.

It is a truism that ambition is an element of one’s success, financially and otherwise. So is a willingness to put in effort. And, of course, the much-needed courage to take risks.

But even if you’re not into making your own pie, in a free market system in a society that lives free, there will be lots of other pie makers who will make a pie for you or sell you a slice of your own choice.

Musk’s fortune encompasses the immense value of the creation of thousands of jobs, the incredible number of technological spillovers, the untold national security contributions, and the enormous advantages for the U.S. military and NASA, to name a few.

Thomas Sowell once said, “Capitalism is not an ‘ism.’ It is closer to being the opposite of an ‘ism,’ because it is simply the freedom of ordinary people to make whatever economic transactions they can mutually agree to.”

The SpaceX IPO exemplifies one of capitalism’s greatest strengths: Rewarding those who solve problems and who create widespread economic ripples through wealth, capital, and inspiration, boosting productivity and human progress far beyond the headline numbers.

As SpaceX stocks are traded and humanity edges closer to becoming multi-planetary, let’s be grateful rather than resentful.

Musk’s trillionaire status is proof that betting on bold ideas, such as rockets, electric cars, AI, and free speech, pays dividends for civilization.

The reaction ought not be to seek to tear him down, but rather to find out how we can encourage the next generation of builders to aim even higher.

The universe awaits.

Freedom is the fuel that will take us there.

Hollywood Targets LA Mayoral Candidate Spencer Pratt

As the race for the Los Angeles city mayor heats up, some top-name celebrities are rushing to the rescue of incumbent Mayor Karen Bass by targeting her rising-star challenger Spencer Pratt.

Actor, comedian, and game show host Drew Carey recently took to the social media stage to spout off about Pratt and cuss in current Dem fashion.

“Anyone who votes for, or endorses Spencer Pratt for Mayor of LA needs to get their head out of their a**,” Carey wrote.

Carey’s tirade is no isolated rant. It’s actually a reflection of a broader pattern on the part of select Hollywood celebrities, who appear to be trying to save Bass from an embarrassing loss come election day.

Aside from Carey, additional Pratt detractors include Jimmy Kimmel, Chelsea Handler, and Lisa Rinna, to name a few.

Bass is a longtime Democrat politician, who has unsurprisingly collected endorsements from some of Hollywood’s most far-left hotshots.

Why would celebrities the likes of Carey and Kimmel be rushing to endorse Bass and attack Pratt?

Much of the celebrity praise is obviously virtue signaling. But there is also a desire on the part of some to firmly align themselves with high-profile status quo politicians.

Celebrity activists are in a panic because the unexpected happened.

Pratt had a highly successful reality TV show, which makes him a bona fide Hollywood star himself.

Now he has succeeded in bursting onto the political scene with his blunt-truth communication style and his incredibly effective use of social media. His big rise in the polls says it all.

As June 2 quickly approaches, things are reaching a fever pitch. Many who live in the celebrity bubble appear to be visibly shaken.

That’s because to them the mayoral election is less about government solutions and more about far-left ideology and self-preservation.

A lot of the A-listers live in gated communities and work in sequestered studio lots. Such settings are far-removed from the failing streets that ordinary Angelenos have to endure.

Endorsements of Bass allow them to feign compassion without having to address the policy failures that have turned the City of Angels into a scene out of Dante’s Inferno.

Pratt’s rise is directly related to the incompetent leadership and failed policies of the city’s incumbent mayor.

Having lost his home in the 2025 Palisades wildfire, he has been publicly criticizing Bass and other state leaders for the inadequate preparation, empty reservoirs, delayed responses, and broader lack of governance regarding infrastructure, crime, and homelessness.

His campaign for mayor has emphasized practical fixes, such as bolstering the LAPD, mandating treatment for those with addiction and mental health issues, cleaning up the street encampments, and demanding accountability for nonprofits that are gobbling up billions of dollars.

The grassroots support for Pratt continues to build as he is besting Bass in small-dollar campaign donations as well as in the polls. To the celebrity class this, along with his genuineness, makes him dangerous. Deriding him is just plain easier than debating him.

Pratt points out that, under Bass’s leadership, the city of Los Angeles has struggled with persistent homelessness, surging violent crime, and emergency preparedness gaps, which were exposed by the fires.

It turns out that Bass’s leftist credentials were actually honed during the 1970s, when she joined the Venceremos Brigade and made multiple trips to Cuba doing construction and agricultural work in support of Fidel Castro’s revolution.

The Brigade was organized by pro-Cuba leftists that had Marxist-Leninist ties. Rather than being a humanitarian organization, it was simply a communist one.

The mayor has admitted that she grew up around “red diaper babies” (children of Communist Party members). She has also said that radicals and communists played a “huge role” in her early influences.

In 2016, after Castro’s death, she issued a statement characterizing his demise as a “great loss to the people of Cuba.”

In 2017, she inserted congressional remarks, eulogizing longtime Communist Party USA leader Oneil Cannon as a “friend and mentor.”

Pratt is resonating with the voting public precisely because he is mirroring what they see. He’s no routine polished politician reciting talking points. Instead he is advocating for a rejection of the far-left orthodoxy that created the whole mess.

In a nutshell, LA is a city that is desperate for deliverance from its misery.

Pratt is offering a much-needed remedy to the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same wretched results.

Trump’s Blockade and Negotiate Strategy Is Working

President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a naval blockade on Iran while keeping the door open for serious negotiations represents classic America First leadership. It is decisive, pragmatic, and rooted in the proven principle that weakness invites aggression while strength compels compromise.

Critics on both the isolationist right and the interventionist left have attacked the strategy, but the facts on the ground tell a different story. Thanks to the overwhelming success of Operation Epic Fury, the United States now possesses the military dominance necessary to enforce a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy chokepoint, without risking an uncontrollable escalation.

Launched on February 28, 2026, Operation Epic Fury was a laser-focused, 38-day campaign that achieved what previous administrations only talked about. U.S. and Israeli forces flew over 10,000 air sorties, struck more than 13,000 targets, and delivered devastating blows to Iran’s military capabilities. Key achievements included:

– Destruction of large portions of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal (over 450 ballistic missile targets hit) and missile production facilities.

– Near-total elimination of Iran’s naval power, including dozens of warships, submarines, and fast-attack boats. As CENTCOM reported, after the operation there was “not a single Iranian ship underway in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, or Gulf of Oman.”

– Degradation of Iran’s air defenses, command-and-control centers, and defense industrial base, severely limiting its ability to threaten commercial shipping or project power.

These successes directly paved the way for the current blockade. By neutralizing Iran’s navy and anti-ship missile capabilities, Operation Epic Fury removed the greatest risks that previously made a sustained blockade too dangerous. Starting in mid-April, the U.S. Navy has effectively controlled access to Iranian ports, choking off the regime’s oil export revenue — which funds both its nuclear program and terror proxies. Iran is now losing hundreds of millions of dollars every day.

The brilliance of Trump’s approach lies in pairing this maximum pressure with maximum flexibility for diplomacy. The blockade remains firmly in place until Iran agrees to a real deal, one that verifiably ends its nuclear weapons program, severs support for terrorism, and guarantees safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

This is not endless war. This is targeted leverage designed to force the Iranian regime to choose between survival and suicide.

History shows this strategy works. Ronald Reagan used similar pressure on the Soviet Union. Trump’s first-term “maximum pressure” campaign brought Iran to the table before Biden’s weakness squandered it. Now, with America’s military having demonstrated overwhelming dominance through Operation Epic Fury, Trump is once again negotiating from a position of strength.

The results are already visible. Iran is desperate to reopen the Strait. Multiple rounds of talks are underway. Oil markets have stabilized somewhat as the world witnesses American resolve. Our Gulf allies feel safer than they have in years.

The alternative — retreating, lifting sanctions, and hoping for good behavior — has been tried and failed spectacularly. It led directly to the crisis that made Operation Epic Fury necessary.

President Trump’s blockade-and-negotiate doctrine is not warmongering. It is responsible statecraft that protects American interests, secures global energy supplies, deters future aggression, and gives diplomacy the only thing that actually works: real leverage.

America is stronger when we lead with strength. Trump’s strategy in the Strait of Hormuz is proving that truth once again. Critics are gonna complain, but results will vindicate the president.

The AGI Tower of Babel

In the Book of Genesis, humanity speaks with one tongue, resolving to build a city and tower “whose top may reach unto heaven.”

The intended purpose of the tower is not just for shelter or utility but for self-exaltation, as illustrated by the verse, “Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

The project is breathtaking in ambition and terrifying in its implication. It is an overt attempt to storm the divine realm through collective human will.

God looks down, sees their unity, and declares that “nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” He then confounds their language and scatters them. The tower is left unfinished, a monument to hubris.

As may have been predictable, tech driven members of our society appear to be building that tower again. Only this time the bricks are silicon, the mortar is computer code, and the “heaven” that is being sought after is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

AGI has the capacity to reason, invent, and act across every domain in a far superior manner than the greatest geniuses among us.

To understand AGI we must do a comparison between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AGI.

Imagine a super-smart computer or robot that can do any kind of thinking task that a human being is able to do, only in a much faster and advanced way.

Right now most AI technologies are “narrow,” meaning that they are really good at one specific thing. For example, one AI might beat you at chess, another might write poems, and another might translate languages. But they cannot easily switch over to tasks for which they were not trained.

However, when it arrives AGI is going to be very different from AI. It will be able to learn new skills on its own just by searching, reading, and watching. It will be able to program itself, train itself, replicate itself, and improve itself. And by using this self-training, it will be able to grow its abilities at lightning speed.

It is easy to see why the race for AGI is no longer just about science or product competition. AGI looks to ultimately be able to complete thousands of years of human thought in a single solitary moment.

Scientists have not built true AGI yet, but many people are working to do just that. Experts say it is set to arrive in years as opposed to decades.

The above noted parallels between the Tower of Babel and AGI are not poetic license. The world’s brightest minds are actually speaking the same language, the language of code, math, and data.

Despite the appearances of a rivalry between companies and/or nations, the underlying project feels eerily unified in nature.

What looks to be a competitive frenzy may be masking a deeper convergence.

Everyone understands that the first to win the AGI race will not only rule, the victor will have a potentially permanent advantage in the area of intelligence itself.

Biblical metaphors seem fitting.

A growing faction within the AI race is no longer framing AGI as a powerful tool, or even as a transformative technology. Instead competitors, both openly and in private, speak of creating a “god,” i.e., a super-intelligent entity whose alignment with their own interests effectively crowns them with the title of “all-powerful.”

The underlying logic is brutally Darwinian: Whoever is the first to birth the super-intelligent god ascends to the rank of high priest.

Researchers are describing the moment of AGI’s arrival in religious terms. The ongoing race has ceased to be commercial or geopolitical. It has actually acquired a zealous urgency to create the god before the competition does. Then you will not only win, you will transcend.

You will be the triumphant one. The one who chose correctly. And the one that history will remember as having ushered in the next stage of existence.

Lose, and you risk being rendered irrelevant by someone else’s deity.

The ancient builders of Babel looked to make a name for themselves. Today’s builders are looking to make a god for themselves.

Perhaps the confusion of tongues, which stopped the tower from being built, will arrive in the form of technical failure, regulatory intervention, or a sudden realization that an intelligence vastly superior to our own may not remain grateful to its creators.

Or perhaps the intervention will be a morally based one. The moment in time when the realization hits that in trying to become gods, humanity becomes complicit in making itself obsolete.

The clock is ticking, and the AGI Tower of Babel keeps on rising.

No longer is the question whether or not we will witness the completion of the tower.

Rather, it is whether or not we will still have the wherewith-all to look up and ask what exactly is being created.

An Elon Musk Win in His OpenAI Lawsuit Is a Win for the Public

The high-profile trial of Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman is one week in.

As the federal jury in Oakland, California takes in the evidence, one simple question hangs over the courtroom: Can you steal a charity?

The answer will determine the future of artificial intelligence as well as the fate of charitable giving.

OpenAI, the entity that Musk and Altman co-founded, was built on a solemn, legally binding promise that its leaders have since breached.

What began in December 2015 as a nonprofit organization, which was dedicated to developing artificial intelligence that benefitted all of humanity, has become a closed-source, profit-making, $850 billion company.

The stealth transformation was not merely a clever business plan. It was a breach of charitable trust.

Musk, Altman, and Greg Brockman co-founded OpenAI. Prior to its founding, Musk had grown increasingly worried about the risks of advanced AI. Altman shared similar concerns about AI’s concentration in a few big companies.

Altman and Musk had the titles of co-chairs at OpenAI’s launch. Musk hadn’t just lent his name to the new nonprofit, he had conceived the idea, recruited key talent, and poured in tens of millions of dollars.

The founding charter sought to advance digital intelligence safely and openly, free from commercial pressures. Internal documents, emails, and Musk’s sworn testimony presented during the first week of the trial have laid it out plainly.

Musk would never have funded or championed the project had he known it would morph into a Microsoft-backed profit engine. But this is exactly what happened.

After Musk left the board of directors in 2018 over conflicts with Tesla’s own AI work, OpenAI’s management pivoted.

First came the effort to attract capital. Then billions of dollars rolled in from Microsoft. And by 2025, OpenAI had fully restructured into a for-profit entity, with Microsoft securing a 27% stake worth $135 billion. The company was sprinting toward going public.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT became a commercial hit, while the original open-source safety-first mission was quietly deleted.

The very organization that Musk helped to create, trying to prevent AI from being controlled by a handful of profit-driven giants, was now partnered with one of them.

Based on the evidence in court, Musk’s motives for bringing the lawsuit appear to be legitimate. Musk has testified that, by late 2022, he had lost confidence in Altman’s commitment to the nonprofit charter. And he has renounced any personal financial gain he would obtain from a legal victory. It appears as though the legal proceeding is not about him enriching himself, because he has pledged to redirect any damages back to the original charitable mission.

In large part, this case is about enforcing the rules that protect donors who give to a charitable cause with the expectation that the organization will remain a charity.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. If the jury and the judge allow to stand the transformation of a charity into a business enterprise, a dangerous precedent will be set.

If this should happen, any nonprofit entity would be able to use a founder’s accomplishments and status to bring in initial donations, and then flip to a for-profit model once the money and talent have been locked in.

Such a precedent would cause charitable giving in America to suffer a serious decline.

Ironically, the future of AI would be handed over to the same concentrated corporate power that Musk and Altman originally set out to counter.

It is unlikely that a Musk victory in this legal battle would detrimentally affect innovation. Rather, it may have the potential to restore competition and accountability. It may also force OpenAI to honor the safety-and-humanity-first charter, which justified its tax-exempt status and spurred its original support.

Despite the high profile and high net worth of both of the parties in this trial, the issues at stake are more than just monetary. The founding documents of OpenAI are, in essence, a contract with the public.

Musk’s attorney put it bluntly in the opening statement: “No one should be allowed to steal a charity.”

As an example, a nonprofit museum can run a gift shop, but it cannot loot the Rembrandts and sell them for private gain.

The monumental trial is expected to last three to four weeks. After the jury has heard the testimony, seen the emails, and gone over the timeline, it must decide whether promises made in the name of humanity still mean anything.

A verdict for Musk would send a clear message to those creating AI models: Innovation without integrity has consequences.

Promises must be kept, especially when it comes to the commitment between a charity and its donors.

The commitment of OpenAI to pursue safe, open, humanity-first artificial intelligence must be honored.

If justice prevails, Musk should be the victor. And the public will reap the benefit.