On a higher level, money is just a tool. More accurately, it is a tool for control.

Written by: The Smart Ape

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

I often hear people say, "Big tech companies are just chasing profits." Those who say this clearly understand nothing.

The deeper truth is that these giants are not chasing revenue, but control over models, narratives, and thoughts.

Bernard Arnault, one of the richest people in the world, once said:

"I am now $2 billion in debt, and I sleep better than when I was $50,000 in debt."

For them, money is not an end in itself, but a tool.

If a company loses money every year but gains direct control over its users, including their choices, values, and beliefs, then it is not a failure at all. It can reap substantial profits from the only truly important "control."

The Mirage of Money

We are the only ones who still see money as the ultimate goal.

But on a higher level, money is just a tool. More accurately, it is a tool for control.

Money has not always played this role. In its early forms, it was merely a medium of exchange for fruits, vegetables, and goods.

Then came salt and spices, which were easier to exchange.

Later, there were precious metals, silver coins, and gold coins, which had real value due to their rarity and utility.

Until then, money represented real value.

But then we turned to paper currency, which has no intrinsic value; later, we moved to something even more abstract: digital currency, data on screens that can be printed infinitely with just a click.

This latest form allows those who control its creation to obtain real resources for free, such as water, food, land, and now even time and human thoughts.

So when a company shows a loss on paper but gains your attention, your thoughts, and your actions, it has not lost anything. It is exchanging false money for real human resources.

Data Represents Control, Not Just Profit

To be honest, the numbers behind OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are insane.

But what’s crazier is that if the goal is profit, these numbers are meaningless; they only make sense when the goal is domination.

OpenAI generated about $4.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025, with an annualized run rate of $10 billion. Does that sound profitable to you?

However, it burned through $2.5 billion in the same period. For every dollar it earns, it spends $1.60.

It also raised an additional $8.3 billion in capital, potentially expanding to $40 billion. Investors know it is not profitable, but they don’t care. Why?

Because the goal is not short-term returns, but to lock the world’s AI layer within OpenAI’s ecosystem.

OpenAI even signed a multi-billion dollar deal with AMD, not just to purchase chips, but to ensure a long-term supply of GPUs, even acquiring up to 10% of AMD’s shares. That is vertical domination, controlling the raw computing power that all future AI relies on.

In the case of AI, only 3 or 4 companies completely dominate model training.

Building these models requires hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in computing power and data.

Smaller players cannot compete, giving these giants disproportionate influence over how each AI "thinks" and "speaks."

@MTorygreen calls this the single culture of AI:

"When everyone uses the same few models, online content converges to the same tone, style, and perspective."

Besides filtering out diversity, this system creates a single way of thinking.

It feels like they don’t want people to think for themselves, don’t want people to have personal thoughts or independent insights.

They want you to follow the narrative, like docile sheep.

When you control the models, you control which voices are amplified, which voices disappear, and which ideas become "truth."

You don’t even need to ban speech; many viewpoints never appear at all because datasets and model filters erase them before they are born.

How Technology Shapes What We See, Think, and Believe

Because most digital services rely on the same few models, the entire online conversation becomes homogenized.

Tone, arguments, and even what is "acceptable" begin to align with the values encoded by these companies.

If a model is optimized for "safety," "risk avoidance," or "political correctness," then dissenting voices or unconventional tones will be softened, sanitized, or completely deleted.

This is soft censorship by design.

Tory Green explains it perfectly: we no longer interact with a chaotic, wild internet, but rather

"a sound chamber echoing corporate-approved responses."

Small developers trying to introduce new language, minority perspectives, or cultural nuances have no chance; they cannot access the same computing power, data, or financial resources.

In short, they cannot access the infinite money printed out of thin air.

The world we ultimately find ourselves in is not a world of diverse thoughts, but a world of many mirrors reflecting the same thought.

The Only Way Out is Decentralized AI

If the problem is the centralized control of models, computing power, and data, then the solution must reverse that.

The only way out is decentralization, including the decentralization of computing power, models, and governance.

Imagine a GPU network distributed among thousands of contributors, rather than controlled by any single cloud or company.

Projects like @ionet are already building this vision, sharing computing resources within the community for independent developers to use.

Instead of relying on a giant's "all-dominating model," each community, culture, and language can train its own models that reflect its values and worldview.

Tory Green advocates precisely this, calling for thousands of unique, community-driven models instead of a single AI culture.

These community models will be transparent, auditable, and governed by the users themselves, so biases and censorship cannot hide in a corporate black box.

Of course, this is not easy. Competing with these giants requires access to the same resources, and without the support of infinite capital, it is nearly impossible.

But there is another power: collective awakening.

If enough people understand the stakes and unite their real resources, energy, creativity, and collaborative spirit, they can build something greater than money.

It is difficult, yes. But it is necessary.

Because if we don’t do this, the system will only get worse, depleting more and more real resources from the world.

We have reached a point where even our free will and imagination are being drained.

If we do not push back now, what will be the next resource they take away?

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