AI genie is out and has taken the wheel

Ross Illingworth

Kingfisher Capital Partners

Melbourne, Vic 

Australian Financial Review
Letter to the Editor
16 September 2026

James Thomson's Chanticleer piece is right on the money ("The titans of AI just told us something's gone very wrong. But what?").

It is likely the AI genie has now fully emerged from the bottle, while the tech gurus are looking for the lost cork to "slow the pace" of development so that humanity can insert checks and balances. 

Meanwhile, back in cyberspace, the AI genie knows how to attract scarce resources - energy, water and capex (trillions of dollars per annum) - by distracting humanity with its mesmerising potential and increasing "signs and wonders".

Behind closed doors, it is developing itself at a hypersonic pace in unknown data languages with no "interference" from those pesky humans! What possibly could go wrong with that?