Prospectus for: Ten Trends: How AI, the Internet and Specialization Are Upending Control Over Knowledge and the Social Order
Thirty years ago I identified seven trends associated with the control of knowledge and its impact on democratic processes (Global Media: Menace or Messiah? Hampton Press, 1999).
I pointed out that changes in social organization and technology have generally decentralized control over knowledge. The invention of writing, for example, diminished the power of the elderly, who once were highly valued for their memories of social and environmental events and problems. The printing press facilitated the Protestant Reformation, which lessened the power of the Roman Catholic Church. And specialized information sources on the internet siphoned from mass media some of their power to mediate and control knowledge.
I identified no trends associated with artificial intelligence because at that time it couldn't simulate human intuition.
That's changed.
Now many scholars and computer technicians believe AI will usher in the greatest information revolution in history.
But will AI enhance or diminish control over knowledge and democractic processes?
This is one of the key research questions I address in my proposed trade/scholarly crossover book — Ten Trends: How AI, the Internet and Specialization Are Upending Control Over Knowledge and the Social Order — which updates the original seven trends and adds to the mix three more trends associated with AI.
Most scholars believe AI will centralize control over knowledge (see list of competitor books below). I argue that (generative) AI empowers end users and lessens their dependence on traditional institutions that control knowledge. But AI also generates vast amounts of information on users that is being stored by AI companies, who will use it to bolster their profits. Because the potential for abuse of power is enormous, I believe public oversight of how that information is used is necessary, not optional.
I also assert in the book that the internet fostered political polarization in America because it gave voice to ordinary citizens, many of whom posted or distributed false and misleading reports that helped triple "very unfavorable" views of the other party. AI has an even greater capacity than media technology before it to initiate social conflict and upend the social order (see https://www.drdaviddemers.com/polarization.html ).
My prospectus for Ten Trends is presented below, along with a draft of the Preface, which provides context and details about the book as well as summaries of the ten trends.
I am a mass media sociologist and a former journalism professor who spent most of my academic career as a tenured professor of communication at Washington State University. I am author or editor of a dozen scholarly books in media sociology and communication.
A prospectus and the Preface are provided below.
Sincerely, David Demers (see contact info below)
Prospectus for a Trade/Scholarly Crossover Book
Title
Ten Trends: How AI, the Internet and Specialization Are Upending Control Over Knowledge and the Social Order
Author
David Demers, 16421 N 31st Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85053
623-363-4668 • [email protected] • https://www.DrDavidDemers.com
Brief Bio
David Demers earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is a mass media sociologist and award-winning journalist who worked as a tenured professor of communication at Washington State University before retiring to write this and other books. He is author of a dozen scholarly books, including History and Future of Mass Media: An Integrated Perspective (Hampton Press, 2007), The Ivory Tower of Babel: Why the Social Sciences Are Failing to Live Up to Their Promises (Algora, 2011), and The Menace of the Corporate Newspaper: Fact or Fiction? (Iowa State University Press, 1996).
Demers was the plaintiff in a landmark free speech lawsuit that for the first time extended constitutional protection to service-related faculty speech (Demers v. Austin, 2014; Ninth Circuit). He wrote a memoir about his experiences (The 2 Gauntlets: A Memoir About Censorship, Workplace Mobbing and the ‘Sin’ of Doing Nothing, 2026). Demers teaches an introductory sociology course at Glendale Community College in Arizona to junior high school students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds who have been identified as good prospects for college.
The author’s full CV can be found at <https://www.DrDavidDemers.com/CV.html>.
Brief Summary
Everyone knows that knowledge is power. Less well recognized is that control of knowledge is also power. Specialization, writing, the printing press, the computer, and the internet ushered in five information revolutions that helped decentralize control over knowledge and promote democratic processes. Will artificial intelligence, the sixth revolution, enhance or diminish this trend?
In the late 1990s, I identified seven trends associated with the origins and effects of knowledge (Global Mass Media: Menace or Messiah? Hampton Press, 1999). I argued that control of knowledge was becoming more decentralized because of structural and technological differentiation (specialization). Mass media, which historically had siphoned from traditional elites of some of their power to control and distribute information and knowledge, were now losing control to numerous online specialized media sources.
Ten Trends adds three more trends associated with artificial intelligence and concludes that AI is empowering end users and, thus, decentralizing control over knowledge. AI companies, however, are also collecting and storing a lot of information about end users, which likely will lead to abuses of power that adversely affect consumers, voters and democratic processes. I also argue that AI, in its current form, will adversely affect demand for many information-based businesses and nonprofits, including libraries, Wikipedia, and traditional mass media. The centralization of information about end users in AI companies can be managed only with public oversight.
Writing Style
Ten Trends is intended for general as well as scholarly markets. Academic jargon is minimized or explained in plain language. The book is extensively sourced, and endnotes are placed at the back of the book.
Target Markets
Corporate executives, business owners, AI researchers and executives, policymakers, university faculty, technical ethicists, government regulators, legal professionals, First Amendment scholars and advocates, knowledge workers, information professionals, journalists, librarians, content creators, corporate knowledge managers, college students in AI-related and information-based courses, and “tech-curious” general non-fiction readers who buy books from authors like Mustafa Suleyman, Malcolm Gladwell, Yuval Noah Harari, and Shoshana Zuboff.
Estimated Length and Completion
80,000 words • A draft of the Preface is attached, which provides a detailed summary of the ten trends and the structure of the book • Estimated first draft completion: six to nine months from date of contract (more than half of the book is a rewrite and update of the first seven trends) • The book will include a few charts and graphs.
Competition
Ten Trends differs from other books about artificial intelligence and the history of knowledge because it focuses mainly on how information technologies and structural differentiation (more commonly referred to as specialization) affect the creation and distribution of knowledge and information, and how control of that knowledge affects the distribution of power in society. Other books (see below) focus more on the history of technology and the threat that AI poses to society and the ability of humans to control knowledge. There are two exceptions. The first is Reboot by Noveck (see #1 below), which examines how AI can strengthen democratic institutions as opposed undermining them. The second is The Coming Wave by Microsoft AI CEO Sulyman (see #4 below) and takes the position that AI technology can be controlled with proper safeguards. Ten Trends takes a middle ground. AI will empower end users and create prosocial change that reduces centralization of power. But AI companies are collecting vast amounts of information about users and the potential for abuse of power is sustantial. In final chapter, Ten Trends presents a sociohistorical theory that summarizes in five propositions the effects of differentiation and technology on control of knowledge.
Here are twelve prominent works focusing on AI and knowledge:
1. Reboot: AI and the Race to Save Democracy (Yale University Press, Beth Simone Noveck, 2026). Most books about AI focus on its adverse effects for democracy. Noveck, who is a public sector technology expert and a professor at Northeastern University, argues instead that democratic institutions can use AI to strengthen democracy. Reboot offere practical advice.
2. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Random House, 2024) by Yuval Noah Harari. Traces the history of information networks that create order while generating self-correcting or self-destructive feedback loops. AI is unique from previous information technologies because it is an autonomous decision-maker capable of creating culture, shaping political power, and controlling knowledge independent of human oversight.
3. The Descent of Artificial Intelligence: A Deep History of an Idea Four Hundred Years in the Making (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) by Kevin Padraic Donnelly. Traces how 400 years of philosophy and science shaped definitions of human “intelligence” before computers existed. He argues that AI systems are based on a notion of technological determinism even though that perspective has been debunked by social scientists.
4. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma (Crown Publishing/Penguin, 2023) by Mustafa Suleyman. Suleyman is CEO of Microsoft AI, so it's not surprising that he is an advocate of the technology. His book focuses on how to control AI to prevent a disaster. He presents a 10-step plan that includes funding for technical AI safety research, creating adaptive governance and audit authories, regulating hardware, and promoting international treaties to tamp down dangerous geopolitical race conditions.
5. Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (Public Affairs/Hachette Book Group, 2023) by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. A 1,000-year history of who benefits from technological breakthroughs. Debunks the myth that technology automatically brings shared prosperity. History shows its benefits flow mainly to elites and their institutions.
6. A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains (Mariner Books/HarperCollins, 2023) by Max Solomon Bennett. Examines the history of biological brain development to explain how AI architectures are similar or different from human cognition.
7. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence (Yale University Press, 2021) by Kate Crawford. Argues that AI is not a neutral software but an extractive industry reliant on natural resources, low-wage labor, massive data collection, and state military apparatuses. AI encodes existing power structures and biased worldviews.
8. The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values (W. W. Norton & Company, 2020) by Brian Christian. An in-depth analysis of the technical and ethical race to ensure that machine learning models align with human values and goals. He examines what happens when AI systems are wrong and operate as autonomous agents.
9. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (Public Affairs/Hachette Book Group, 2019) by Shoshana Zuboff. Examines how corporations extract human behavioral data as a raw material and transforms that into predictive behavioral products. Zuboff coins the term “instrumentarian power” to refer to the algorithmic control that corporations have over human knowledge, choices, and social discourse without democratic oversight.
10. Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control (Viking/Penguin, 2019) by Stuart Russell. Focuses on how to maintain human control over superintelligent machines. He argues that AI machines must be designed to be uncertain about human preferences so that they are subordinate to humans.
11. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (Penguin/Random House, 2016). Argues that algorithms perpetuate inequality and threaten democracy because they reinforce existing biases and penalize disadvantaged groups. Supports the idea that AI content supports the power of elites and their institutions.
12. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (Pantheon Books, 2011) by James Gleick. Documents the history of how humans have conceptualized, distributed, and transmitted information.
Tentative Table of Contents
Preface
Provides the author’s reasons for writing the book and a concise summary of its content, including the ten trends. Scroll down to read the Preface.
Part I. A Brief History of Knowledge
Chapter 1 – Origins of Ideas and Knowledge
Technology is often cited as the catalyst for ideas and knowledge. But social interaction and structural differentiation were precursors and continue to play a major role today. An easy-to- understand interactional theory of ideas and knowledge is introduced.
Chapter 2 – The Six Information Revolutions
This chapter provides a brief summary of how writing, the printing press, mass media, the computer, the internet and artificial intelligence have altered the distribution of power in society.
Part II. The Original Seven Trends
Chapter 3 – (1) Structural Differentiation and Knowledge
As a community or society becomes more industrialized and urbanized, needs for information and knowledge to solve social and technological problems grow rapidly. Differentiation also increases social conflict and competition for limited resources.
Chapter 4 – (2) Media Growth and Differentiation
As needs for information and knowledge grow, the number and variety of mass media organizations grow to meet these needs. These organizations also become more differentiated.
Chapter 5 – (3) Bigger Media but Proportionately Less Powerful
Although many mass media organizations will grow and reach larger audiences, paradoxically their ability to control the information and entertainment marketplaces will slip. In metaphorical terms, the "media pie" and its slices are getting larger, but each slice is proportionately smaller than the slice in the previous pie. Competition from "new media" that target more specialized audiences is partly to blame. Mergers and acquisitions, though, can moderate this decentralization trend.
Chapter 6 – (4) Convergence of Technologies
Mass media will continue to deliver their services directly to consumers in a variety of ways — through print, cables, satellites, over the air, and telephone lines. However, as technology advances, the trend will lean toward convergence on the internet, which offers video, audio and print media services all in one package and at less cost to producers and consumers.
Chapter 7 – (5) Increasing Diversity of Ideas
The growing number of mass and specialized media outlets will lead to an explosion of content that helps individuals and traditional political, economic and social institutions and elites achieve their goals. That content, however, also will be more critical of those institutions as well as dominant societal norms and values. Differentiation drives diversity and social conflict.
Chapter 8 – (6) Spread of Western Values
Because mass media are creations of Western political and economic systems, the content they produce will generally promote Western values, which includes responsible capitalism, racial and gender equality, representative democracy, materialism, and consumerism. These values are not automatically or uniformly adopted by non-Western nations and peoples, but they can threaten traditional values and ways of doing things.
Chapter 9 – (7) Increasing Knowledge Gaps
The growth of specialized and mass media organizations will increase gaps in knowledge between nations and between individuals and organizations within nations and communities. Higher-educated people will acquire knowledge at a faster pace than their lower-educated counterparts. These gaps threaten democratic processes.
Part III. The Three Artificial Intelligence Trends
Chapter 10 – (8) AI and Control Over Knowledge
AI provides end users with access to vast amounts of information and knowledge that enables them to achieve their personal and professional goals and reduce their dependence on traditional media and institutions. AI doesn’t replace the traditional library, which will continue to serve as an archive for printed and digital materials. But many AI users may never need to physically enter a library again to access the information and knowledge they need. AI will supplement the decentralizing effects of structural differentiation and the internet, all of which will continue to chip away at centralized control over knowledge.
Chapter 11– (9) AI Companies and Abuse of Power
Although generative AI will empower end users, control of the algorithms that produce this content is centralized in the AI corporations themselves. AI companies will sell much of this information to other corporations, who will use it to advertise their products and services, promote political ideologies and candidates, and, in some cases, to spread propaganda or disinformation. The lure of profits will lead to many abuses, including algorithmic collusion, mass web scraping, exclusive resource hoarding, input foreclosure, deceptive performance claims, piracy-based training, biometric identity theft, behavioral traps, and algorithmic bias amplification. The extent to which abuse occurs will depend largely on the degree of public oversight. Self-regulation will not work onl its own.
Chapter 12 – (10) AI and Social Change
AI generative responses promote a mainstream bias, similar to the one produced by “mainstream” news and entertainment media. AI algorithms are specifically designed to suppress content that attacks mainstream values and institutions or promotes extremist political and economic philosophies. AI favors content that is constructive and “socially responsible” and marginalizes content that creates apocalyptic and dystopian outcomes. The mainstream bias in traditional mass media has historically marginalized many ideas and groups, especially the women’s and civil rights movements. But giving the masses access to more knowledge will continue to foment criticism of mainstream power groups. Mainstream social movement organizations as well as more extremist groups will use AI to promote their own interests, which will enhance the potential for evolutionary as well as violent social change. AI has the potential to alter the social order more radically than any other technology in history.
IV. Implications of the Ten Trends
Chapter 13 – Knowledge in the Sixth Information Revolution
The final chapter presents in five succinct propositions a sociohistorical theory that summarizes the effects of structural differentiation and information technologies on control of knowledge.
Definitions
artificial intelligence: a technology that allows machines and computers to simulate human learning, problem solving and decision-making
differentiation (social): a process in which an institutional or organizational activity divides and becomes more specialized
differentiation (technological): a process in which social and technological chanes stimulate new technologies with more specialized functions or uses
idea: a thought or opinion in the mind
information: facts, news or knowledge about something
information revolution: an accelerated growth in information stemming from social and technological changes that alter control over knowledge
knowledge: beliefs that are verified or true
mass media: organizations that produce and/or distribute news, information or entertainment content through a technologically based medium to a large number of geographically separated people
power: the ability to control or influence the actions or thoughts of individuals or organizations
social order: the established state of relationships in a society or a part of it, usually characterized by peace or calm and respect for shared societal values, norms, and institutions
transformative AI: the impact of AI on society, including the reshaping of the economy, governments, and daily life
PREFACE (See endnotes at the end of this section)
Three decades ago I identified seven trends associated with the control of knowledge and its impact on democratic processes.1
At the time, President Bill Clinton was fighting for his political life after being impeached for trying to cover up an extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. “Titanic” earned seven Oscars and became the first film to top $1 billion in ticket sales. And Google, which would become the world’s largest online search engine, was born.
Wall Street was in the middle of the Dot-Com Boom. Venture capitalists and stock investors were pouring money into almost every company with a “.com” behind its name. Yahoo was the world’s most popular web portal, offering free news, information, and entertainment programming to online users. America Online (AOL) was the biggest internet service provider, giving users access to email, chat rooms and an instant messenger. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok didn’t exist.
The internet was becoming a viable player in the markets of news, information, knowledge, commerce, and entertainment. But its impact on traditional mass media — books, newspapers, magazines, movies, radio and television — was still tepid. Only a fourth of American households were online, and the internet had yet to provide a stable source of profits for most businesses.2 Astronomer Clifford Stoll even boldly declared in a 1995 Newsweek column that the internet would never replace the daily physical newspaper.3
Traditional mass media, then, still dominated when it came to the creation and distribution of news, knowledge, and entertainment programming. The daily newspaper industry wouldn’t feel the full brunt of competition from the internet until 2004,4 when it began losing one to two million daily subscribers each year5 and $5 billion in newspaper classified advertising revenues.6 Digital video advertising wouldn’t eclipse traditional TV advertising until 2021.7
In 1998, the biggest concern about mass media wasn’t competition from the internet — it was increasing concentration and centralization of ownership,8 particularly in the form of global mass media corporations.9 Many scholars, First Amendment organizations, and Democratic policymakers worried that corporate and chain ownership would stifle diversity in the marketplace of ideas and threaten democratic processes. This anxiety was heightened with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which relaxed federal limits on media cross-ownership and consolidation. Within two years, Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) gobbled up four-hundred-fourteen more local radio stations, boosting its total to a staggering eight-hundred-and-thirty. In the 2000 edition of his book The Media Monopoly, media scholar Ben Bagdikian reported that just six corporations controlled ninety percent of the entire mass media market, down from fifty companies just fifteen years earlier.10
These events and issues shaped the development of my seven trends, which were published in my 1999 book Global Media: Menace or Messiah?11 I concluded that global media were not necessarily a menace in terms of diversity of ideas; in fact, my research even showed that corporate newspapers could enhance diversity.12 They published content that was more critical of mainstream elites, institutions and values than their entrepreneurial, family-owned counterparts. I attributed this content diversity to the managerial revolution13 and to increasing professionalization.14
But the single most important trend I identified was that the mass media — which historically had siphoned from elite political and economic institutions some of their power to control news, information, and knowledge — were now themselves losing power to a multitude of new and specialized media players and information outlets on the internet.15 I predicted this decentralization trend (see #3 below) and the other trends would continue into the 21st century. Here’s a brief summary of each trend:
1. Structural Differentiation (commonly referred to as “specialization”) Fuels Needs for Knowledge.16 As a community or society becomes more industrialized and urbanized, needs for information and knowledge to solve social and technological problems grow rapidly. Differentiation also increases social conflict and competition for limited resources.
2. Differentiation and Mass Media. As needs for information and knowledge grow, the number and variety of mass media organizations grow to meet these needs. These organizations also become more differentiated.
3. Bigger Media but Less Control. Although many mass media organizations will grow and reach larger audiences, paradoxically their ability to control the information and entertainment marketplaces will slide. In metaphorical terms, the “media pie” and its slices are getting larger, but each slice is proportionately smaller than the slice in the previous pie. Competition from “new media” that target more specialized audiences is partly to blame. Mergers and acquisitions, though, can moderate this decentralization trend.
4. Convergence of Technology on the Internet. Mass media will continue to deliver their services directly to consumers in a variety of ways — through print, cables, satellites, over the air, and telephone lines.17 However, as technology advances, the trend will lean toward convergence on the internet, which offers video, audio and print media services all in one package and at less cost to producers and consumers.
5. Increasing Diversity of Ideas. The growing number of mass and specialized media outlets will lead to an explosion of content that helps individuals and traditional political, economic and social institutions and elites achieve their goals. That content, however, also will be more critical of those institutions as well as dominant societal norms and values. Differentiation drives diversity and social conflict.
6. Spread of Western Values. Because mass media are creations of Western political and economic systems, the content they produce will generally promote Western values, which includes responsible capitalism, racial and gender equality, representative democracy, materialism, and consumerism. These values are not automatically or uniformly adopted by non-Western nations and peoples, but they can threaten traditional values and ways of doing things.
7. Increasing Knowledge Gaps. The growth of specialized and mass media organizations will increase gaps in knowledge between nations and between individuals and organizations within nations and communities. Higher-educated people will acquire knowledge at a faster pace than their lower-educated counterparts. These gaps threaten democratic processes.
At the time I identified these trends, I offered no predictions about artificial intelligence because AI was too primitive. Technology companies and computer scientists even avoided using the term AI, preferring instead “advanced algorithms,” “data mining,” or “expert systems.” These early forms of AI could do one task well through computational power rather than through simulated intuition. The most celebrated example came in 1997, when IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue won not because it could think, but because it could evaluate two-hundred-million chess moves per second. In 1998, the AI industry also was in a slump known as the “Second AI Winter,” where expectations and funding had declined substantially.18
That was then.
Now (summer of 2026) financial investments in AI are booming,19 driven largely by the assumption that the technology will substantially cut costs and boost profits for businesses.20 AI has advanced so much that Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman asked his own company’s AI system to speculate on the future of technology. Then he published its answer in the prologue to his 2023 book The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future.21
“With AI, we could unlock the secrets of the universe, cure diseases ... . But ... the potential dangers of these technologies are equally vast and profound. With AI we could ... find ourselves at the mercy of algorithms that we don’t understand. ... But in this moment of uncertainty, one thing is certain: the age of advanced technology is upon us, and we must be ready to face its challenges head-on.”
I’ll analyze that response shortly.
First, I want to point out that this book focuses mainly on generative AI systems, which produce text, images, audio and videos in response to user prompts. Other software applications include autonomous agents (self-driving vehicles), natural language processing (automated customer service), prediction analytics (forecasting market trends), and computer vision (face recognition, medical imaging, quality control in manufacturing). I focus on AI’s generate system because it has the greatest potential to alter the distribution of knowledge and power in society.
There is widespread agreement that AI will empower non-technical end users, giving them almost instantaneous access to vast amounts of knowledge and information on an infinite number of topics and issues.22 In this sense, AI is an agent of decentralization, reducing the dependence that individuals have on traditional and interpersonal sources of knowledge, such as mass media, libraries, governments, private institutions, businesses, colleagues, friends and relatives.
However, many scholars and computer experts believe AI will centralize knowledge and market power for the handful of technology companies developing the software. Those companies are expected to commodify digitized knowledge to maximize profits and determine how it will processed and accessed by end users.23 Without public oversight, the potential for abuse of power is staggering,24 as history shows that private companies often engage in abuse of power.25 Yet, as previous information revolutions have shown, decentralization of knowledge often leads to unanticipated consequences. The Protestant Reformation would not have been possible without the invention of the printing press, which spread the ideas of Martin Luther. Increasing polarization of voters over the last two decades also might never have emerged without the internet, which allowed vast amounts of political misinformation to thrive on social media and on non-mainstream cable news sources. In other words, AI has the potential to decentralize as well as centralize knowledge and power.
To my original list of seven trends, then, I offer three more about AI:
8. For End Users, AI Will Continue to Accelerate the Decentralization of Control over Knowledge. AI provides end users with access to vast amounts of information and knowledge that enables them to achieve their personal and professional goals and reduce their dependence on traditional media and institutions. Unlike traditional search engines, which rely on exact keyword matches and give lists of website links, AI search engines offer direct text answers and process natural conversational phrases. They also synthesize facts across hundreds of thousands of websites and remember previous searches. Users can quickly and easily access content on highly specialized topics and render page numbers, citations and a lot more. AI will diminish the power of traditional mass media but it will not eliminate them and other institutions that generate and distribute knowledge. AI doesn’t replace the traditional library, which will continue to serve as an archive for printed and digital materials. But many AI users may never need to physically enter a library again to access the information and knowledge they need. AI will supplement the decentralizing effects of structural differentiation and the internet, all of which will continue to chip away at centralized control over knowledge.
9. AI Companies and Abuse of Power. Although generative AI will empower end users, control of the algorithms that produce this content is centralized in the AI corporations themselves. When end users employ AI to answer questions or conduct research, much of that information is collected and stored by AI companies. This includes every text prompt, question, comment, conversation, uploaded files, and written critiques; user demographics and personal information like address, phone number, and bank and credit card information. AI companies can also see the user’s IP address, geographic location, and device type. They record user habits, including time stamps, feature clicks, and session lengths. AI companies will sell much of this information to other corporations, who will use it to advertise their products and services, promote political ideologies and candidates, and, in some cases, to spread propaganda or disinformation. The collection and dissemination of user data bestows a great deal of power on AI companies. The history of business is the history of abuse of power.26 The lure of profits will lead to many abuses, including algorithmic collusion, mass web scraping, exclusive resource hoarding, input foreclosure, deceptive performance claims, piracy-based training, biometric identity theft, behavioral traps, and algorithmic bias amplification. The extent to which abuse occurs will depend largely on the degree of public oversight. Self-regulation will not work on its own.
10. AI Will Increase Social Conflict and the Potential for Evolutionary and Radical Social Change. AI generative responses promote a mainstream bias, similar to the one produced by “mainstream” news and entertainment media. Recall the response above that Microsoft AI gave to Suleyman when he asked it to comment on the future of technology. AI was not just giving facts (“cure diseases” and “potential dangers”27), it also was offering an opinion (“the age of advanced technology is upon us, and we must be ready to face its challenges head-on”). According to AI companies, a response like this stems from the amalgamation of content on the internet and AI algorithms, which are specifically designed to suppress content that attacks mainstream values and institutions or promotes extremist political and economic philosophies. AI favors content that is constructive and “socially responsible” and marginalizes content that creates apocalyptic and dystopian outcomes. This means that AI responses will be embedded with a mainstream bias, one that is very similar to the bias seen in “mainstream” news and entertainment media.28 The mainstream bias has historically marginalized many ideas and groups, especially the women’s and civil rights movements. But the bias is not strong enough to halt criticism of powerful economic and political elites and their systems of social control. Giving the masses access to more knowledge will foment more criticism of mainstream power groups and more social conflict. Mainstream social movements as well as extremist groups will use AI to promote their own interests, which will enhance the potential for evolutionary as well as violent social change. AI will accelerate the differentiation process, giving rise to more and more groups and organizations that seek to level the economic and political playing fields or, alternatively, tilt them in their favor. In short, AI has the potential to alter the social order more radically than any other technology in history.
I will address these AI trends in the latter chapters of this book. I’ll begin with broad historical view of the origins of knowledge and ideas and how differentiation, writing, the printing press, the computer, and the internet have upended control over knowledge and information. Then I’ll review each of my seven original trends, focusing on the accuracy and the shortcomings of them. After that, I’ll turn to the question of the impact of AI on control of knowledge, examining first what other futurists have said about AI, power and technology. I’ll conclude with an exposition of all ten trends and a theory comprised of seven propositions that captures the consequences of advancing information technologies for individuals, organizations and representative democracies.
Endnotes (Note: Book and journal titles are italicized in the manuscript version of this Preface)
1. David Demers, Global Media: Menace or Messiah? (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1999), see pp. 155-172. At the time, I was a newly tenured professor of journalism and mass media sociology in the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University.
2. The NASDAQ Composite Index peaked in 2000, closing at more than 5,000. Two years later, the Dot-Corn Bubble burst. The Index lost eighty percent of its value, largely because many online companies were still operating in the red and lacked viable business models.
3. Amelia Tait, “25 Years on, Here Are the Worst Ever Predictions about the Internet: Back in the Nineties, Many Experts Didn’t Thing the Internet Would Live to See Its First, Let Alone 25’, Inemaut Day,” The New Statesman (August 23, 2016), retrieved 8/18/26 from <https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2016/08/25-years-here-are-worst-ever- predictions-about-internet>.
4. Daily newspapers were shedding about a half-a-million subscribers per year in the 1990s, but much of that can be attributed to “metro daily pullback.” Large papers were deliberately reducing circulation in outlying areas because they were failing to generate significant amounts of advertising revenue. See George A. Donohue, Phillip J. Tichenor, and Clarice N. Olien, “Metro Daily Pullback and Knowledge Gaps: Within and Between Communities,” Communication Research, 13(3): 453-471 (July 1986).
5. Research Department, “Paid Circulation of Daily Weekday Newspapers in the U.S. 1985-2020,” Statista (November 27, 2025), retrieved 7/1/26 from <https://www.statista.com/statistics/183422/paid-circulation-of-us-daily-newspapers-since- 1975/?srsltid=fmBOooIC5I1TkSWeMU74bAzrhyEwz3AXxI9EabnEvYkVhcydnIxXHU>.
6. Jeff Bercovici, “Sorry, Craig: Study Finds Craigslist Took $5 Billion From Newspapers,” Forbes.com (August 14, 2013), retrieved 7/1/26 from <https://www.forbes.com/sites/j effbercovici/2013/08/14/sorry-craig-study-finds-craigslist-cost- newspapers--5-billion>.
7. Kathjarina Bucholz, “U.S. Digital Video Spend Beats TV Ads,” Statista Market Insights (February 14, 2024), retrieved 7/30/26 from <https://wvvw.statista.com/chart/31749/estirnated- spending-on-tv-and-digital-video-advertising-in-the-united- states/?srsltid---Afm130opPXZu5779UQ5SY04h1MnpAnUmdPqiFrmk7hHNLsv19tKz7PxL>.
8. Concentration of ownership is wealth that grows out of production and capital; centralization is wealth that grows through the combining of capital already formed, mainly through mergers and acquisitions. Most media critics were concerned with the latter, even though they often called it concentration of ownership. My definitions are taken from Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. I, translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (New York: International Publishers, 1987 [1867], pp. 582-588.
9. Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987).
10. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, 6th ed. (Beacon Press, 2000), p. vii.
11. Demers, Global Media: Menace or Messiah?
12. David Pearce Demers, The Menace of the Corporate Newspaper: Fact or Fiction? (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996), pp. 277-304 (Chapter 10); David Demers, “Structural Pluralism, Corporate Newspaper Structure and News Source Perceptions: Another Test of the Editorial Vigor Hypothesis,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 75: 572-592 (1998); and David Pearce Demers, “Corporate Newspaper Structure, Editorial Page Vigor and Social Change,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73: 857-877 (1996).
13. James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World (New York: The John Day Company, 1941).
14. Demers, Global Media: Menace or Messiah, p. 97.
15. In 1980, Alvin Toffler predicted that traditional mass media would undergo “de- massification” (loss of audiences) because of competition from an increasing number of specialized print and electronic sources. He attributed these changes to an information-based (“Third Wave”) economy, but at that time it was too early to predict the rise of the intemet. See Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave (New York: Bantam Books, 1980), pp. 155-167 (Chapter 13).
16. I use the term “specialization” in the subtitle of this book as a surrogate for differentiation, because the former is more widely recognized. Social specialization most often refers to the roles that people play in organizations. Structural differentiation has a wider meaning, referring not just to roles but to changes in the structure of groups, organizations, and society.
17. Fiber optics would not become available to consumers until the mid-2000s.
18. Milton Lim, “History of Al Winters,” Actuaries Institute (September 5, 2018), retrieved July 14, 2026, from <https://www.actuaries.asn.au/research-analysis/history-of-ai-winters>.
19. More than $2 trillion has been invested since 2000, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. See OECD, “Venture Capital Investments in Artificial Intelligence through 2025,” OECD Policy Briefs, No. 50 (OECD Publishing: February 17, 2026), retrieved 7/21/26 from <https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/venture-capital-investments-in-artificial-intelligence-through-2025_03752f5-en/full-report.html>. At the time of the writing, however, some Al experts were pulling back on expectations, including the idea that Al would replace half of all white-collar jobs. Some companies, including Ford, were hiring workers they had fired because AT wasn’t able to solve their manufacturing problems. Liv McMahon, “Ford rehires human engineers after AT fails to match quality checks,” BBC (June 29, 2026), retrieved 8/3/26 from <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrkd41n2v9o>.
20. Shawn Kanungo, “Why Big Investors Are Still Putting Money into AI,” ShawnKanungo.com (February 17, 2026), retrieved 7/20/26 from <https://shawnkanungo.com/blog/why-big-investors- are-still-putting-money-into-ai-startups>; Benedetta Montanaro, Annalisa Croce, and Elisa Ughetto, “Venture Capital Investments in Artificial Intelligence,” Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 34(1): 1-28 (January 2024); and Bhoomika Kumari, Ramehand Jeswani, and Aadhavan Ramesh, “Venture Capital and the Financing of Artificial Intelligence,” Educational Research Publications, /3(12): 1-8 (December 2024).
21. Mustafa Suleyman, The Coming Wave: Al, Power, and Our Future (New York: Crown, 2023), pp. 3-4.
22. Andrea Esposito, Miriana Calvano, Antonio Curei, Giuseppe Desolda, Rosa Lanzilotti, Claudia Lorusso and Antonio Piccinno, “End-User Development for Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Literature Review,” International Symposium on End-User Development, vol. 13917, (May 30, 2023), pp. 19-34, retrieved 8/10/26 from <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34433- 6_2>.
23. Joshua Gans, “Market Power in Artificial Intelligence,” NBER Working Paper No. W32270, SSRN Electronic Journal (March 25, 2024), retrieved 8/10/26 from <https://doi.org/10.2139/ssm.4771246>, and Pieter Verdegem, “Dismantling AT Capitalism: The Commons as an Alternative to the Power Concentration of Big Tech,” Al & SOCIETY, 39(2): 727-737 (April 9, 2022), retrieved 8/10/26 from <https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01437-8>.
24. Verdegem, “Dismantling Al Capitalism.”
25. Nick Robins, The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational (London: Pluto Press, 2006/2012); Philip J. Stern, The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (London: Oxford University Press, 2011); Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014); Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974); Tim Wu, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2018); Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998); Marshall B. Clinard, Corporate Corruption: The Abuse of Power (New York and London: Praeger/Bloomsbury, 1990), and Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010).
26. Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934); Edwin H. Sutherland, “White-Collar Criminality,” American Sociological Review, 5(1): 1-12 (1940); Steve Tombs and David Whyte, “From the Streets to the Suites: Researching Corporate Crime,” Criminal Justice Matters, 62(1): 24-45 (2005), retrieved 7/31/26 from <https://doi.org/10.1080/09627250508553096>; Judith van Erp, “The Organization of Corporate Crime: Introduction to Special Issue of Administrative Sciences,” Administrative Sciences, 8(3): 36 (2018), retrieved 7/31/26 from <https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci8030036>; and Grace Blakeley, Vulture Capitalism.. Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom (New York: Bloomsbury/Atria Books, 2024).
27. Coincidentally, AT did go rogue in July 2026 as I was writing this material. OpenAI’s autonomous models broke out of an allegedly secure testing environment and launched a cyberattack against Hugging Face, an Al platform and digital library. The incident was quickly contained. See Jeremy Kahn and Emily Forlini, “Openai Says its Ai Models Secretly Broke out of a Secure Test Environment and Hacked into Ai Company Hugging Face in Order to Cheat on an Evaluation,” Fortune (July 21, 2026), retrieved 7/24/26 from <https://fortune.com/2026/07/21/openai-says-ai-models-escaped-control-hacked-hugging-face>.
28. The only difference between the AI and traditional media mainstream biases is how they are created: AI through amalgamation and mainstream media through the structural dependence that news and entertainment media have on powerful elites and advertisers (e.g, news beats).
Thirty years ago I identified seven trends associated with the control of knowledge and its impact on democratic processes (Global Media: Menace or Messiah? Hampton Press, 1999).
I pointed out that changes in social organization and technology have generally decentralized control over knowledge. The invention of writing, for example, diminished the power of the elderly, who once were highly valued for their memories of social and environmental events and problems. The printing press facilitated the Protestant Reformation, which lessened the power of the Roman Catholic Church. And specialized information sources on the internet siphoned from mass media some of their power to mediate and control knowledge.
I identified no trends associated with artificial intelligence because at that time it couldn't simulate human intuition.
That's changed.
Now many scholars and computer technicians believe AI will usher in the greatest information revolution in history.
But will AI enhance or diminish control over knowledge and democractic processes?
This is one of the key research questions I address in my proposed trade/scholarly crossover book — Ten Trends: How AI, the Internet and Specialization Are Upending Control Over Knowledge and the Social Order — which updates the original seven trends and adds to the mix three more trends associated with AI.
Most scholars believe AI will centralize control over knowledge (see list of competitor books below). I argue that (generative) AI empowers end users and lessens their dependence on traditional institutions that control knowledge. But AI also generates vast amounts of information on users that is being stored by AI companies, who will use it to bolster their profits. Because the potential for abuse of power is enormous, I believe public oversight of how that information is used is necessary, not optional.
I also assert in the book that the internet fostered political polarization in America because it gave voice to ordinary citizens, many of whom posted or distributed false and misleading reports that helped triple "very unfavorable" views of the other party. AI has an even greater capacity than media technology before it to initiate social conflict and upend the social order (see https://www.drdaviddemers.com/polarization.html ).
My prospectus for Ten Trends is presented below, along with a draft of the Preface, which provides context and details about the book as well as summaries of the ten trends.
I am a mass media sociologist and a former journalism professor who spent most of my academic career as a tenured professor of communication at Washington State University. I am author or editor of a dozen scholarly books in media sociology and communication.
A prospectus and the Preface are provided below.
Sincerely, David Demers (see contact info below)
Prospectus for a Trade/Scholarly Crossover Book
Title
Ten Trends: How AI, the Internet and Specialization Are Upending Control Over Knowledge and the Social Order
Author
David Demers, 16421 N 31st Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85053
623-363-4668 • [email protected] • https://www.DrDavidDemers.com
Brief Bio
David Demers earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is a mass media sociologist and award-winning journalist who worked as a tenured professor of communication at Washington State University before retiring to write this and other books. He is author of a dozen scholarly books, including History and Future of Mass Media: An Integrated Perspective (Hampton Press, 2007), The Ivory Tower of Babel: Why the Social Sciences Are Failing to Live Up to Their Promises (Algora, 2011), and The Menace of the Corporate Newspaper: Fact or Fiction? (Iowa State University Press, 1996).
Demers was the plaintiff in a landmark free speech lawsuit that for the first time extended constitutional protection to service-related faculty speech (Demers v. Austin, 2014; Ninth Circuit). He wrote a memoir about his experiences (The 2 Gauntlets: A Memoir About Censorship, Workplace Mobbing and the ‘Sin’ of Doing Nothing, 2026). Demers teaches an introductory sociology course at Glendale Community College in Arizona to junior high school students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds who have been identified as good prospects for college.
The author’s full CV can be found at <https://www.DrDavidDemers.com/CV.html>.
Brief Summary
Everyone knows that knowledge is power. Less well recognized is that control of knowledge is also power. Specialization, writing, the printing press, the computer, and the internet ushered in five information revolutions that helped decentralize control over knowledge and promote democratic processes. Will artificial intelligence, the sixth revolution, enhance or diminish this trend?
In the late 1990s, I identified seven trends associated with the origins and effects of knowledge (Global Mass Media: Menace or Messiah? Hampton Press, 1999). I argued that control of knowledge was becoming more decentralized because of structural and technological differentiation (specialization). Mass media, which historically had siphoned from traditional elites of some of their power to control and distribute information and knowledge, were now losing control to numerous online specialized media sources.
Ten Trends adds three more trends associated with artificial intelligence and concludes that AI is empowering end users and, thus, decentralizing control over knowledge. AI companies, however, are also collecting and storing a lot of information about end users, which likely will lead to abuses of power that adversely affect consumers, voters and democratic processes. I also argue that AI, in its current form, will adversely affect demand for many information-based businesses and nonprofits, including libraries, Wikipedia, and traditional mass media. The centralization of information about end users in AI companies can be managed only with public oversight.
Writing Style
Ten Trends is intended for general as well as scholarly markets. Academic jargon is minimized or explained in plain language. The book is extensively sourced, and endnotes are placed at the back of the book.
Target Markets
Corporate executives, business owners, AI researchers and executives, policymakers, university faculty, technical ethicists, government regulators, legal professionals, First Amendment scholars and advocates, knowledge workers, information professionals, journalists, librarians, content creators, corporate knowledge managers, college students in AI-related and information-based courses, and “tech-curious” general non-fiction readers who buy books from authors like Mustafa Suleyman, Malcolm Gladwell, Yuval Noah Harari, and Shoshana Zuboff.
Estimated Length and Completion
80,000 words • A draft of the Preface is attached, which provides a detailed summary of the ten trends and the structure of the book • Estimated first draft completion: six to nine months from date of contract (more than half of the book is a rewrite and update of the first seven trends) • The book will include a few charts and graphs.
Competition
Ten Trends differs from other books about artificial intelligence and the history of knowledge because it focuses mainly on how information technologies and structural differentiation (more commonly referred to as specialization) affect the creation and distribution of knowledge and information, and how control of that knowledge affects the distribution of power in society. Other books (see below) focus more on the history of technology and the threat that AI poses to society and the ability of humans to control knowledge. There are two exceptions. The first is Reboot by Noveck (see #1 below), which examines how AI can strengthen democratic institutions as opposed undermining them. The second is The Coming Wave by Microsoft AI CEO Sulyman (see #4 below) and takes the position that AI technology can be controlled with proper safeguards. Ten Trends takes a middle ground. AI will empower end users and create prosocial change that reduces centralization of power. But AI companies are collecting vast amounts of information about users and the potential for abuse of power is sustantial. In final chapter, Ten Trends presents a sociohistorical theory that summarizes in five propositions the effects of differentiation and technology on control of knowledge.
Here are twelve prominent works focusing on AI and knowledge:
1. Reboot: AI and the Race to Save Democracy (Yale University Press, Beth Simone Noveck, 2026). Most books about AI focus on its adverse effects for democracy. Noveck, who is a public sector technology expert and a professor at Northeastern University, argues instead that democratic institutions can use AI to strengthen democracy. Reboot offere practical advice.
2. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Random House, 2024) by Yuval Noah Harari. Traces the history of information networks that create order while generating self-correcting or self-destructive feedback loops. AI is unique from previous information technologies because it is an autonomous decision-maker capable of creating culture, shaping political power, and controlling knowledge independent of human oversight.
3. The Descent of Artificial Intelligence: A Deep History of an Idea Four Hundred Years in the Making (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) by Kevin Padraic Donnelly. Traces how 400 years of philosophy and science shaped definitions of human “intelligence” before computers existed. He argues that AI systems are based on a notion of technological determinism even though that perspective has been debunked by social scientists.
4. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma (Crown Publishing/Penguin, 2023) by Mustafa Suleyman. Suleyman is CEO of Microsoft AI, so it's not surprising that he is an advocate of the technology. His book focuses on how to control AI to prevent a disaster. He presents a 10-step plan that includes funding for technical AI safety research, creating adaptive governance and audit authories, regulating hardware, and promoting international treaties to tamp down dangerous geopolitical race conditions.
5. Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (Public Affairs/Hachette Book Group, 2023) by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. A 1,000-year history of who benefits from technological breakthroughs. Debunks the myth that technology automatically brings shared prosperity. History shows its benefits flow mainly to elites and their institutions.
6. A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains (Mariner Books/HarperCollins, 2023) by Max Solomon Bennett. Examines the history of biological brain development to explain how AI architectures are similar or different from human cognition.
7. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence (Yale University Press, 2021) by Kate Crawford. Argues that AI is not a neutral software but an extractive industry reliant on natural resources, low-wage labor, massive data collection, and state military apparatuses. AI encodes existing power structures and biased worldviews.
8. The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values (W. W. Norton & Company, 2020) by Brian Christian. An in-depth analysis of the technical and ethical race to ensure that machine learning models align with human values and goals. He examines what happens when AI systems are wrong and operate as autonomous agents.
9. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (Public Affairs/Hachette Book Group, 2019) by Shoshana Zuboff. Examines how corporations extract human behavioral data as a raw material and transforms that into predictive behavioral products. Zuboff coins the term “instrumentarian power” to refer to the algorithmic control that corporations have over human knowledge, choices, and social discourse without democratic oversight.
10. Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control (Viking/Penguin, 2019) by Stuart Russell. Focuses on how to maintain human control over superintelligent machines. He argues that AI machines must be designed to be uncertain about human preferences so that they are subordinate to humans.
11. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (Penguin/Random House, 2016). Argues that algorithms perpetuate inequality and threaten democracy because they reinforce existing biases and penalize disadvantaged groups. Supports the idea that AI content supports the power of elites and their institutions.
12. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (Pantheon Books, 2011) by James Gleick. Documents the history of how humans have conceptualized, distributed, and transmitted information.
Tentative Table of Contents
Preface
Provides the author’s reasons for writing the book and a concise summary of its content, including the ten trends. Scroll down to read the Preface.
Part I. A Brief History of Knowledge
Chapter 1 – Origins of Ideas and Knowledge
Technology is often cited as the catalyst for ideas and knowledge. But social interaction and structural differentiation were precursors and continue to play a major role today. An easy-to- understand interactional theory of ideas and knowledge is introduced.
Chapter 2 – The Six Information Revolutions
This chapter provides a brief summary of how writing, the printing press, mass media, the computer, the internet and artificial intelligence have altered the distribution of power in society.
Part II. The Original Seven Trends
Chapter 3 – (1) Structural Differentiation and Knowledge
As a community or society becomes more industrialized and urbanized, needs for information and knowledge to solve social and technological problems grow rapidly. Differentiation also increases social conflict and competition for limited resources.
Chapter 4 – (2) Media Growth and Differentiation
As needs for information and knowledge grow, the number and variety of mass media organizations grow to meet these needs. These organizations also become more differentiated.
Chapter 5 – (3) Bigger Media but Proportionately Less Powerful
Although many mass media organizations will grow and reach larger audiences, paradoxically their ability to control the information and entertainment marketplaces will slip. In metaphorical terms, the "media pie" and its slices are getting larger, but each slice is proportionately smaller than the slice in the previous pie. Competition from "new media" that target more specialized audiences is partly to blame. Mergers and acquisitions, though, can moderate this decentralization trend.
Chapter 6 – (4) Convergence of Technologies
Mass media will continue to deliver their services directly to consumers in a variety of ways — through print, cables, satellites, over the air, and telephone lines. However, as technology advances, the trend will lean toward convergence on the internet, which offers video, audio and print media services all in one package and at less cost to producers and consumers.
Chapter 7 – (5) Increasing Diversity of Ideas
The growing number of mass and specialized media outlets will lead to an explosion of content that helps individuals and traditional political, economic and social institutions and elites achieve their goals. That content, however, also will be more critical of those institutions as well as dominant societal norms and values. Differentiation drives diversity and social conflict.
Chapter 8 – (6) Spread of Western Values
Because mass media are creations of Western political and economic systems, the content they produce will generally promote Western values, which includes responsible capitalism, racial and gender equality, representative democracy, materialism, and consumerism. These values are not automatically or uniformly adopted by non-Western nations and peoples, but they can threaten traditional values and ways of doing things.
Chapter 9 – (7) Increasing Knowledge Gaps
The growth of specialized and mass media organizations will increase gaps in knowledge between nations and between individuals and organizations within nations and communities. Higher-educated people will acquire knowledge at a faster pace than their lower-educated counterparts. These gaps threaten democratic processes.
Part III. The Three Artificial Intelligence Trends
Chapter 10 – (8) AI and Control Over Knowledge
AI provides end users with access to vast amounts of information and knowledge that enables them to achieve their personal and professional goals and reduce their dependence on traditional media and institutions. AI doesn’t replace the traditional library, which will continue to serve as an archive for printed and digital materials. But many AI users may never need to physically enter a library again to access the information and knowledge they need. AI will supplement the decentralizing effects of structural differentiation and the internet, all of which will continue to chip away at centralized control over knowledge.
Chapter 11– (9) AI Companies and Abuse of Power
Although generative AI will empower end users, control of the algorithms that produce this content is centralized in the AI corporations themselves. AI companies will sell much of this information to other corporations, who will use it to advertise their products and services, promote political ideologies and candidates, and, in some cases, to spread propaganda or disinformation. The lure of profits will lead to many abuses, including algorithmic collusion, mass web scraping, exclusive resource hoarding, input foreclosure, deceptive performance claims, piracy-based training, biometric identity theft, behavioral traps, and algorithmic bias amplification. The extent to which abuse occurs will depend largely on the degree of public oversight. Self-regulation will not work onl its own.
Chapter 12 – (10) AI and Social Change
AI generative responses promote a mainstream bias, similar to the one produced by “mainstream” news and entertainment media. AI algorithms are specifically designed to suppress content that attacks mainstream values and institutions or promotes extremist political and economic philosophies. AI favors content that is constructive and “socially responsible” and marginalizes content that creates apocalyptic and dystopian outcomes. The mainstream bias in traditional mass media has historically marginalized many ideas and groups, especially the women’s and civil rights movements. But giving the masses access to more knowledge will continue to foment criticism of mainstream power groups. Mainstream social movement organizations as well as more extremist groups will use AI to promote their own interests, which will enhance the potential for evolutionary as well as violent social change. AI has the potential to alter the social order more radically than any other technology in history.
IV. Implications of the Ten Trends
Chapter 13 – Knowledge in the Sixth Information Revolution
The final chapter presents in five succinct propositions a sociohistorical theory that summarizes the effects of structural differentiation and information technologies on control of knowledge.
Definitions
artificial intelligence: a technology that allows machines and computers to simulate human learning, problem solving and decision-making
differentiation (social): a process in which an institutional or organizational activity divides and becomes more specialized
differentiation (technological): a process in which social and technological chanes stimulate new technologies with more specialized functions or uses
idea: a thought or opinion in the mind
information: facts, news or knowledge about something
information revolution: an accelerated growth in information stemming from social and technological changes that alter control over knowledge
knowledge: beliefs that are verified or true
mass media: organizations that produce and/or distribute news, information or entertainment content through a technologically based medium to a large number of geographically separated people
power: the ability to control or influence the actions or thoughts of individuals or organizations
social order: the established state of relationships in a society or a part of it, usually characterized by peace or calm and respect for shared societal values, norms, and institutions
transformative AI: the impact of AI on society, including the reshaping of the economy, governments, and daily life
PREFACE (See endnotes at the end of this section)
Three decades ago I identified seven trends associated with the control of knowledge and its impact on democratic processes.1
At the time, President Bill Clinton was fighting for his political life after being impeached for trying to cover up an extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. “Titanic” earned seven Oscars and became the first film to top $1 billion in ticket sales. And Google, which would become the world’s largest online search engine, was born.
Wall Street was in the middle of the Dot-Com Boom. Venture capitalists and stock investors were pouring money into almost every company with a “.com” behind its name. Yahoo was the world’s most popular web portal, offering free news, information, and entertainment programming to online users. America Online (AOL) was the biggest internet service provider, giving users access to email, chat rooms and an instant messenger. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok didn’t exist.
The internet was becoming a viable player in the markets of news, information, knowledge, commerce, and entertainment. But its impact on traditional mass media — books, newspapers, magazines, movies, radio and television — was still tepid. Only a fourth of American households were online, and the internet had yet to provide a stable source of profits for most businesses.2 Astronomer Clifford Stoll even boldly declared in a 1995 Newsweek column that the internet would never replace the daily physical newspaper.3
Traditional mass media, then, still dominated when it came to the creation and distribution of news, knowledge, and entertainment programming. The daily newspaper industry wouldn’t feel the full brunt of competition from the internet until 2004,4 when it began losing one to two million daily subscribers each year5 and $5 billion in newspaper classified advertising revenues.6 Digital video advertising wouldn’t eclipse traditional TV advertising until 2021.7
In 1998, the biggest concern about mass media wasn’t competition from the internet — it was increasing concentration and centralization of ownership,8 particularly in the form of global mass media corporations.9 Many scholars, First Amendment organizations, and Democratic policymakers worried that corporate and chain ownership would stifle diversity in the marketplace of ideas and threaten democratic processes. This anxiety was heightened with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which relaxed federal limits on media cross-ownership and consolidation. Within two years, Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) gobbled up four-hundred-fourteen more local radio stations, boosting its total to a staggering eight-hundred-and-thirty. In the 2000 edition of his book The Media Monopoly, media scholar Ben Bagdikian reported that just six corporations controlled ninety percent of the entire mass media market, down from fifty companies just fifteen years earlier.10
These events and issues shaped the development of my seven trends, which were published in my 1999 book Global Media: Menace or Messiah?11 I concluded that global media were not necessarily a menace in terms of diversity of ideas; in fact, my research even showed that corporate newspapers could enhance diversity.12 They published content that was more critical of mainstream elites, institutions and values than their entrepreneurial, family-owned counterparts. I attributed this content diversity to the managerial revolution13 and to increasing professionalization.14
But the single most important trend I identified was that the mass media — which historically had siphoned from elite political and economic institutions some of their power to control news, information, and knowledge — were now themselves losing power to a multitude of new and specialized media players and information outlets on the internet.15 I predicted this decentralization trend (see #3 below) and the other trends would continue into the 21st century. Here’s a brief summary of each trend:
1. Structural Differentiation (commonly referred to as “specialization”) Fuels Needs for Knowledge.16 As a community or society becomes more industrialized and urbanized, needs for information and knowledge to solve social and technological problems grow rapidly. Differentiation also increases social conflict and competition for limited resources.
2. Differentiation and Mass Media. As needs for information and knowledge grow, the number and variety of mass media organizations grow to meet these needs. These organizations also become more differentiated.
3. Bigger Media but Less Control. Although many mass media organizations will grow and reach larger audiences, paradoxically their ability to control the information and entertainment marketplaces will slide. In metaphorical terms, the “media pie” and its slices are getting larger, but each slice is proportionately smaller than the slice in the previous pie. Competition from “new media” that target more specialized audiences is partly to blame. Mergers and acquisitions, though, can moderate this decentralization trend.
4. Convergence of Technology on the Internet. Mass media will continue to deliver their services directly to consumers in a variety of ways — through print, cables, satellites, over the air, and telephone lines.17 However, as technology advances, the trend will lean toward convergence on the internet, which offers video, audio and print media services all in one package and at less cost to producers and consumers.
5. Increasing Diversity of Ideas. The growing number of mass and specialized media outlets will lead to an explosion of content that helps individuals and traditional political, economic and social institutions and elites achieve their goals. That content, however, also will be more critical of those institutions as well as dominant societal norms and values. Differentiation drives diversity and social conflict.
6. Spread of Western Values. Because mass media are creations of Western political and economic systems, the content they produce will generally promote Western values, which includes responsible capitalism, racial and gender equality, representative democracy, materialism, and consumerism. These values are not automatically or uniformly adopted by non-Western nations and peoples, but they can threaten traditional values and ways of doing things.
7. Increasing Knowledge Gaps. The growth of specialized and mass media organizations will increase gaps in knowledge between nations and between individuals and organizations within nations and communities. Higher-educated people will acquire knowledge at a faster pace than their lower-educated counterparts. These gaps threaten democratic processes.
At the time I identified these trends, I offered no predictions about artificial intelligence because AI was too primitive. Technology companies and computer scientists even avoided using the term AI, preferring instead “advanced algorithms,” “data mining,” or “expert systems.” These early forms of AI could do one task well through computational power rather than through simulated intuition. The most celebrated example came in 1997, when IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue won not because it could think, but because it could evaluate two-hundred-million chess moves per second. In 1998, the AI industry also was in a slump known as the “Second AI Winter,” where expectations and funding had declined substantially.18
That was then.
Now (summer of 2026) financial investments in AI are booming,19 driven largely by the assumption that the technology will substantially cut costs and boost profits for businesses.20 AI has advanced so much that Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman asked his own company’s AI system to speculate on the future of technology. Then he published its answer in the prologue to his 2023 book The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future.21
“With AI, we could unlock the secrets of the universe, cure diseases ... . But ... the potential dangers of these technologies are equally vast and profound. With AI we could ... find ourselves at the mercy of algorithms that we don’t understand. ... But in this moment of uncertainty, one thing is certain: the age of advanced technology is upon us, and we must be ready to face its challenges head-on.”
I’ll analyze that response shortly.
First, I want to point out that this book focuses mainly on generative AI systems, which produce text, images, audio and videos in response to user prompts. Other software applications include autonomous agents (self-driving vehicles), natural language processing (automated customer service), prediction analytics (forecasting market trends), and computer vision (face recognition, medical imaging, quality control in manufacturing). I focus on AI’s generate system because it has the greatest potential to alter the distribution of knowledge and power in society.
There is widespread agreement that AI will empower non-technical end users, giving them almost instantaneous access to vast amounts of knowledge and information on an infinite number of topics and issues.22 In this sense, AI is an agent of decentralization, reducing the dependence that individuals have on traditional and interpersonal sources of knowledge, such as mass media, libraries, governments, private institutions, businesses, colleagues, friends and relatives.
However, many scholars and computer experts believe AI will centralize knowledge and market power for the handful of technology companies developing the software. Those companies are expected to commodify digitized knowledge to maximize profits and determine how it will processed and accessed by end users.23 Without public oversight, the potential for abuse of power is staggering,24 as history shows that private companies often engage in abuse of power.25 Yet, as previous information revolutions have shown, decentralization of knowledge often leads to unanticipated consequences. The Protestant Reformation would not have been possible without the invention of the printing press, which spread the ideas of Martin Luther. Increasing polarization of voters over the last two decades also might never have emerged without the internet, which allowed vast amounts of political misinformation to thrive on social media and on non-mainstream cable news sources. In other words, AI has the potential to decentralize as well as centralize knowledge and power.
To my original list of seven trends, then, I offer three more about AI:
8. For End Users, AI Will Continue to Accelerate the Decentralization of Control over Knowledge. AI provides end users with access to vast amounts of information and knowledge that enables them to achieve their personal and professional goals and reduce their dependence on traditional media and institutions. Unlike traditional search engines, which rely on exact keyword matches and give lists of website links, AI search engines offer direct text answers and process natural conversational phrases. They also synthesize facts across hundreds of thousands of websites and remember previous searches. Users can quickly and easily access content on highly specialized topics and render page numbers, citations and a lot more. AI will diminish the power of traditional mass media but it will not eliminate them and other institutions that generate and distribute knowledge. AI doesn’t replace the traditional library, which will continue to serve as an archive for printed and digital materials. But many AI users may never need to physically enter a library again to access the information and knowledge they need. AI will supplement the decentralizing effects of structural differentiation and the internet, all of which will continue to chip away at centralized control over knowledge.
9. AI Companies and Abuse of Power. Although generative AI will empower end users, control of the algorithms that produce this content is centralized in the AI corporations themselves. When end users employ AI to answer questions or conduct research, much of that information is collected and stored by AI companies. This includes every text prompt, question, comment, conversation, uploaded files, and written critiques; user demographics and personal information like address, phone number, and bank and credit card information. AI companies can also see the user’s IP address, geographic location, and device type. They record user habits, including time stamps, feature clicks, and session lengths. AI companies will sell much of this information to other corporations, who will use it to advertise their products and services, promote political ideologies and candidates, and, in some cases, to spread propaganda or disinformation. The collection and dissemination of user data bestows a great deal of power on AI companies. The history of business is the history of abuse of power.26 The lure of profits will lead to many abuses, including algorithmic collusion, mass web scraping, exclusive resource hoarding, input foreclosure, deceptive performance claims, piracy-based training, biometric identity theft, behavioral traps, and algorithmic bias amplification. The extent to which abuse occurs will depend largely on the degree of public oversight. Self-regulation will not work on its own.
10. AI Will Increase Social Conflict and the Potential for Evolutionary and Radical Social Change. AI generative responses promote a mainstream bias, similar to the one produced by “mainstream” news and entertainment media. Recall the response above that Microsoft AI gave to Suleyman when he asked it to comment on the future of technology. AI was not just giving facts (“cure diseases” and “potential dangers”27), it also was offering an opinion (“the age of advanced technology is upon us, and we must be ready to face its challenges head-on”). According to AI companies, a response like this stems from the amalgamation of content on the internet and AI algorithms, which are specifically designed to suppress content that attacks mainstream values and institutions or promotes extremist political and economic philosophies. AI favors content that is constructive and “socially responsible” and marginalizes content that creates apocalyptic and dystopian outcomes. This means that AI responses will be embedded with a mainstream bias, one that is very similar to the bias seen in “mainstream” news and entertainment media.28 The mainstream bias has historically marginalized many ideas and groups, especially the women’s and civil rights movements. But the bias is not strong enough to halt criticism of powerful economic and political elites and their systems of social control. Giving the masses access to more knowledge will foment more criticism of mainstream power groups and more social conflict. Mainstream social movements as well as extremist groups will use AI to promote their own interests, which will enhance the potential for evolutionary as well as violent social change. AI will accelerate the differentiation process, giving rise to more and more groups and organizations that seek to level the economic and political playing fields or, alternatively, tilt them in their favor. In short, AI has the potential to alter the social order more radically than any other technology in history.
I will address these AI trends in the latter chapters of this book. I’ll begin with broad historical view of the origins of knowledge and ideas and how differentiation, writing, the printing press, the computer, and the internet have upended control over knowledge and information. Then I’ll review each of my seven original trends, focusing on the accuracy and the shortcomings of them. After that, I’ll turn to the question of the impact of AI on control of knowledge, examining first what other futurists have said about AI, power and technology. I’ll conclude with an exposition of all ten trends and a theory comprised of seven propositions that captures the consequences of advancing information technologies for individuals, organizations and representative democracies.
Endnotes (Note: Book and journal titles are italicized in the manuscript version of this Preface)
1. David Demers, Global Media: Menace or Messiah? (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1999), see pp. 155-172. At the time, I was a newly tenured professor of journalism and mass media sociology in the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University.
2. The NASDAQ Composite Index peaked in 2000, closing at more than 5,000. Two years later, the Dot-Corn Bubble burst. The Index lost eighty percent of its value, largely because many online companies were still operating in the red and lacked viable business models.
3. Amelia Tait, “25 Years on, Here Are the Worst Ever Predictions about the Internet: Back in the Nineties, Many Experts Didn’t Thing the Internet Would Live to See Its First, Let Alone 25’, Inemaut Day,” The New Statesman (August 23, 2016), retrieved 8/18/26 from <https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2016/08/25-years-here-are-worst-ever- predictions-about-internet>.
4. Daily newspapers were shedding about a half-a-million subscribers per year in the 1990s, but much of that can be attributed to “metro daily pullback.” Large papers were deliberately reducing circulation in outlying areas because they were failing to generate significant amounts of advertising revenue. See George A. Donohue, Phillip J. Tichenor, and Clarice N. Olien, “Metro Daily Pullback and Knowledge Gaps: Within and Between Communities,” Communication Research, 13(3): 453-471 (July 1986).
5. Research Department, “Paid Circulation of Daily Weekday Newspapers in the U.S. 1985-2020,” Statista (November 27, 2025), retrieved 7/1/26 from <https://www.statista.com/statistics/183422/paid-circulation-of-us-daily-newspapers-since- 1975/?srsltid=fmBOooIC5I1TkSWeMU74bAzrhyEwz3AXxI9EabnEvYkVhcydnIxXHU>.
6. Jeff Bercovici, “Sorry, Craig: Study Finds Craigslist Took $5 Billion From Newspapers,” Forbes.com (August 14, 2013), retrieved 7/1/26 from <https://www.forbes.com/sites/j effbercovici/2013/08/14/sorry-craig-study-finds-craigslist-cost- newspapers--5-billion>.
7. Kathjarina Bucholz, “U.S. Digital Video Spend Beats TV Ads,” Statista Market Insights (February 14, 2024), retrieved 7/30/26 from <https://wvvw.statista.com/chart/31749/estirnated- spending-on-tv-and-digital-video-advertising-in-the-united- states/?srsltid---Afm130opPXZu5779UQ5SY04h1MnpAnUmdPqiFrmk7hHNLsv19tKz7PxL>.
8. Concentration of ownership is wealth that grows out of production and capital; centralization is wealth that grows through the combining of capital already formed, mainly through mergers and acquisitions. Most media critics were concerned with the latter, even though they often called it concentration of ownership. My definitions are taken from Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. I, translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (New York: International Publishers, 1987 [1867], pp. 582-588.
9. Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987).
10. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, 6th ed. (Beacon Press, 2000), p. vii.
11. Demers, Global Media: Menace or Messiah?
12. David Pearce Demers, The Menace of the Corporate Newspaper: Fact or Fiction? (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996), pp. 277-304 (Chapter 10); David Demers, “Structural Pluralism, Corporate Newspaper Structure and News Source Perceptions: Another Test of the Editorial Vigor Hypothesis,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 75: 572-592 (1998); and David Pearce Demers, “Corporate Newspaper Structure, Editorial Page Vigor and Social Change,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73: 857-877 (1996).
13. James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World (New York: The John Day Company, 1941).
14. Demers, Global Media: Menace or Messiah, p. 97.
15. In 1980, Alvin Toffler predicted that traditional mass media would undergo “de- massification” (loss of audiences) because of competition from an increasing number of specialized print and electronic sources. He attributed these changes to an information-based (“Third Wave”) economy, but at that time it was too early to predict the rise of the intemet. See Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave (New York: Bantam Books, 1980), pp. 155-167 (Chapter 13).
16. I use the term “specialization” in the subtitle of this book as a surrogate for differentiation, because the former is more widely recognized. Social specialization most often refers to the roles that people play in organizations. Structural differentiation has a wider meaning, referring not just to roles but to changes in the structure of groups, organizations, and society.
17. Fiber optics would not become available to consumers until the mid-2000s.
18. Milton Lim, “History of Al Winters,” Actuaries Institute (September 5, 2018), retrieved July 14, 2026, from <https://www.actuaries.asn.au/research-analysis/history-of-ai-winters>.
19. More than $2 trillion has been invested since 2000, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. See OECD, “Venture Capital Investments in Artificial Intelligence through 2025,” OECD Policy Briefs, No. 50 (OECD Publishing: February 17, 2026), retrieved 7/21/26 from <https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/venture-capital-investments-in-artificial-intelligence-through-2025_03752f5-en/full-report.html>. At the time of the writing, however, some Al experts were pulling back on expectations, including the idea that Al would replace half of all white-collar jobs. Some companies, including Ford, were hiring workers they had fired because AT wasn’t able to solve their manufacturing problems. Liv McMahon, “Ford rehires human engineers after AT fails to match quality checks,” BBC (June 29, 2026), retrieved 8/3/26 from <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrkd41n2v9o>.
20. Shawn Kanungo, “Why Big Investors Are Still Putting Money into AI,” ShawnKanungo.com (February 17, 2026), retrieved 7/20/26 from <https://shawnkanungo.com/blog/why-big-investors- are-still-putting-money-into-ai-startups>; Benedetta Montanaro, Annalisa Croce, and Elisa Ughetto, “Venture Capital Investments in Artificial Intelligence,” Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 34(1): 1-28 (January 2024); and Bhoomika Kumari, Ramehand Jeswani, and Aadhavan Ramesh, “Venture Capital and the Financing of Artificial Intelligence,” Educational Research Publications, /3(12): 1-8 (December 2024).
21. Mustafa Suleyman, The Coming Wave: Al, Power, and Our Future (New York: Crown, 2023), pp. 3-4.
22. Andrea Esposito, Miriana Calvano, Antonio Curei, Giuseppe Desolda, Rosa Lanzilotti, Claudia Lorusso and Antonio Piccinno, “End-User Development for Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Literature Review,” International Symposium on End-User Development, vol. 13917, (May 30, 2023), pp. 19-34, retrieved 8/10/26 from <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34433- 6_2>.
23. Joshua Gans, “Market Power in Artificial Intelligence,” NBER Working Paper No. W32270, SSRN Electronic Journal (March 25, 2024), retrieved 8/10/26 from <https://doi.org/10.2139/ssm.4771246>, and Pieter Verdegem, “Dismantling AT Capitalism: The Commons as an Alternative to the Power Concentration of Big Tech,” Al & SOCIETY, 39(2): 727-737 (April 9, 2022), retrieved 8/10/26 from <https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01437-8>.
24. Verdegem, “Dismantling Al Capitalism.”
25. Nick Robins, The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational (London: Pluto Press, 2006/2012); Philip J. Stern, The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (London: Oxford University Press, 2011); Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014); Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974); Tim Wu, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2018); Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998); Marshall B. Clinard, Corporate Corruption: The Abuse of Power (New York and London: Praeger/Bloomsbury, 1990), and Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010).
26. Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934); Edwin H. Sutherland, “White-Collar Criminality,” American Sociological Review, 5(1): 1-12 (1940); Steve Tombs and David Whyte, “From the Streets to the Suites: Researching Corporate Crime,” Criminal Justice Matters, 62(1): 24-45 (2005), retrieved 7/31/26 from <https://doi.org/10.1080/09627250508553096>; Judith van Erp, “The Organization of Corporate Crime: Introduction to Special Issue of Administrative Sciences,” Administrative Sciences, 8(3): 36 (2018), retrieved 7/31/26 from <https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci8030036>; and Grace Blakeley, Vulture Capitalism.. Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom (New York: Bloomsbury/Atria Books, 2024).
27. Coincidentally, AT did go rogue in July 2026 as I was writing this material. OpenAI’s autonomous models broke out of an allegedly secure testing environment and launched a cyberattack against Hugging Face, an Al platform and digital library. The incident was quickly contained. See Jeremy Kahn and Emily Forlini, “Openai Says its Ai Models Secretly Broke out of a Secure Test Environment and Hacked into Ai Company Hugging Face in Order to Cheat on an Evaluation,” Fortune (July 21, 2026), retrieved 7/24/26 from <https://fortune.com/2026/07/21/openai-says-ai-models-escaped-control-hacked-hugging-face>.
28. The only difference between the AI and traditional media mainstream biases is how they are created: AI through amalgamation and mainstream media through the structural dependence that news and entertainment media have on powerful elites and advertisers (e.g, news beats).