The article builds on emerging scholarship documenting what researchers call "missing AI narratives." A 2022 paper by leading scholars titled "Expert views about missing AI narratives: is there an AI story crisis?" documented how the superintelligence narrative overshadows other possibilities. The current technical and public discourse increasingly presents a dystopian vision of global data centers consuming vast resources to create synthetic intimacy and behavioral manipulation. Specific companies or legislation are not named in available accounts of the piece.
Attorneys should monitor this critique as it gains traction in policy and regulatory circles. The argument directly challenges the industry's claim that superintelligence is the only solution to existential threats like cancer and climate change—a framing that has influenced funding, research priorities, and regulatory approaches. If this counter-narrative gains institutional weight, it could reshape how courts, legislatures, and agencies evaluate AI development proposals and allocate resources. The stakes involve not just which AI futures get built, but which get funded and legally permitted.