The future is still ours to shape

Two recent AI stories have stuck with me. First, there is the information chaos around the war in the Middle East. Every war is also a battle for images, and this one is shaped by AI like never before. All warring parties are flooding the internet with fabricated information. The Iranian regime has circulated AI-generated imagery even of real events. On social media, synthetic war videos have become so profitable that even X now insists on labelling them. While genuine voices from Iran are barely heard, we are inundated with fakes. When the truth is submerged in a flood of false information, who can we still believe? 

The second story: in early March 2026, the Trump administration classified Anthropic – the company behind the Claude AI – as a “security risk.” The reason: Anthropic refuses to make its AI available for mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Does anyone still have doubts about Washington’s intentions with AI? A company that sets even minimal ethical boundaries is clearly not welcome.

AI could achieve so much for humanity

These two stories reveal just how powerful AI has become – and how much depends on who controls it. For there is no doubt that AI could do a great deal of good for people. A quiet, everyday revolution has been unfolding on screens around the world. AI provides education, legal advice and therapy. It makes work more efficient, improves healthcare services, optimises power grids, supports crisis response and helps us adapt to climate change. It can foster inclusion through language, availability and accessibility.

Several initiatives demonstrate that AI can be built to conserve resources and drive progress. However, if misused, it can erode democracies and enable manipulation. The negative sides of AI are already evident in mass data collection, distortion of the truth, environmental destruction and a geopolitical race for raw materials. 

Regulation must be faster

The most widespread AI systems are currently in the hands of a few tech companies whose business models are oriented not towards the common good but towards growth and profit. These companies exert pressure on politics and have even lobbied for a ten-year ban on government AI legislation in the United States, an initiative the Senate rejected. It is high time we took action: we need data security, sovereignty and clear ethical limits.

Countries with economic and political weight can lead the way. The EU has adopted its AI Act; now it will take political backbone to enforce it against resistance.

We’ve been far too slow to act on social media. And yet recent developments show that more oversight is possible: US courts have recently held Meta and YouTube liable for addictive algorithms, whilst X has been penalised in the EU for a lack of transparency. In Brazil, social media operators can be held liable for their users’ illegal content. And when X failed to comply with court orders to block accounts spreading disinformation, the network was promptly shut down – until the company complied and paid the fine.With AI, we need to do better – and move faster. We should champion technologies that serve the common good. AI will shape the coming years in an unprecedented way, but it’s still up to us as humans to determine this future.

Eva-Maria Verfürth is the editor-in-chief of D+C.
euz.editor@dandc.eu