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Writer Venkatesh Rao argues that modern AI panic reflects “cognitive mercantilism”: a zero-sum view in which intelligence is treated as scarce and hoarded by elites. In an essay published on 26 October, he compares that anxiety with the fears that accompanied early capitalism.
Why it mattersIt is a pointed lens on the AI debate, not a technical finding: Rao’s argument asks whether the public conversation is about what AI can do, or who gets to control its benefits.
Discuss: Is AI’s growing influence best understood as a shared tool, or as a scarce resource being fenced off?
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