⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 56 no. 4
From the Editor
From the Editor (Fall 2026)
Ian Campbell
In August, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta gave a speech about what he believes is our future. Entitled “The Future is for Everyone,” the transcribed speech begins by stating the need for a philosophy for how to use “superintelligence” to ensure it improves “all of our lives, work, communities, freedom and safety.” At the risk of sustaining injury to my skull from beating my head against a wall, the AI slopping over every aspect of our cultures today is in no way “super”intelligent. It is not intelligent at all. It is a complex, energy- and water-consuming algorithm for producing a response that mimics something an intelligent person might say. The speech, which very much does mimic what a LLM would produce in response to being prompted with the need to fabricate a philosophy, takes as its primary argument:
We propose a philosophy based on individual empowerment as the source of prosperity, invention as the primary purpose of superintelligence, and balance of power as the foundation of safety.
This is what “looting science fiction” means. We could, in theory, have AI assistants that put everything in MLA 9th edition format so we don’t have to remember where all the commas go. But instead, we’ll get a smooth, seamless avatar that just so subtly directs us to the priorities of the oligarchs. You can all see that “individual empowerment” means “no restrictions on our overlords,” and that “invention” means “instability that the oligarchy can take advantage of to further disempower us”, but it might not be so immediately obvious what “balance of power” means, here. Yet if we continue to read, we encounter:
The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic. Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened has not led to safe or positive outcomes.
In other words, government regulation of AI companies is an extreme concentration of power. This is where we’re at in late 2026, having to draw people’s attention to the fact that our oligarchy is (very nearly) an sbsolute power, and their benevolence is highly dubious.
This is what SF needs to begin to do: to focus on why we shouldn’t build the Torment Nexus, to focus on the human. How do people communicate when Meta can shut off the No Kings account on Instagram and call it a glitch? Oopsie.
Please welcome our new Managing Editor, Michael Pitts, who will begin taking over for me over the course of the next couple of issues. Write me at icampbell@gsu.edu.
