The most pressing danger from AI isn't a hypothetical superintelligence but its use as a tool for societal control. The immediate risk is an Orwellian future where AI censors information, rewrites history for political agendas, and enables mass surveillance—a threat far more tangible than science fiction scenarios.

Leaders must resist the temptation to deploy the most powerful AI model simply for a competitive edge. The primary strategic question for any AI initiative should be defining the necessary level of trustworthiness for its specific task and establishing who is accountable if it fails, before deployment begins.

As AI-powered sensors make the physical world "observable," the primary barrier to adoption is not technology, but public trust. Winning platforms must treat privacy and democratic values as core design requirements, not bolt-on features, to earn their "license to operate."

The most immediate danger of AI is its potential for governmental abuse. Concerns focus on embedding political ideology into models and porting social media's censorship apparatus to AI, enabling unprecedented surveillance and social control.

The principle that governments must hold a monopoly on overwhelming force should extend to superintelligence. AI at that level has the power to disorient political systems and financial markets, making its private control untenable. The state cannot be secondary to any private entity in this domain.

Public fear of AI often focuses on dystopian, "Terminator"-like scenarios. The more immediate and realistic threat is Orwellian: governments leveraging AI to surveil, censor, and embed subtle political biases into models to control public discourse and undermine freedom.

As AI models become more powerful, they pose a dual challenge for human-centered design. On one hand, bigger models can cause bigger, more complex problems. On the other, their improved ability to understand natural language makes them easier and faster to steer. The key is to develop guardrails at the same pace as the model's power.

AI will create negative consequences, like the internet spawned the dark web. However, its potential to solve major problems like disease and energy scarcity makes its development a net positive for society, justifying the risks that must be managed along the way.

The fundamental challenge of creating safe AGI is not about specific failure modes but about grappling with the immense power such a system will wield. The difficulty in truly imagining and 'feeling' this future power is a major obstacle for researchers and the public, hindering proactive safety measures. The core problem is simply 'the power.'