12. Final Guess III: Leviathan's Monopoly (Winner-Takes-All)

Hobbes’ Leviathan

In the political classic Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes described a powerful, all-encompassing state machine that rules like a giant beast. In the 2026 guess, this “Leviathan” is no longer a state, but Super-Scalers—global tech giants.

This script has no romance; it follows a cold natural law: The Matthew Effect—“For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

1. Corporate Kingdoms: Power Beyond Sovereignty

AI technology has a natural attribute: Extreme Economies of Scale. The larger the model, the smarter; the more data, the more precise; the more compute, the more invincible.

This means the field does not tolerate small players. Ultimately, the world might be left with fewer than three giants controlling “Super AGI.”

• Richer than Nations: Their market caps exceed the GDP of most countries.
• Digital Taxation: Every click, every conversation, every API call by humanity is effectively a “Digital Tax” paid to them.
• Invisible Legislation: By adjusting algorithm weights, they decide what news is seen and what opinions are “correct.” They possess substantive legislative and judicial power.

In this script, governments may be reduced to “Administrative Contractors” for these giants, handling trash collection and local policing while core power (economy, discourse, tech) sits in the boardrooms.

2. The Compute Gap: A Brutal Geopolitical Shuffle

This winner-takes-all logic doesn’t just happen between companies; it happens between nations.

The compute gap will split the world into two species:

• Winner Nations (The AI Powers): Owning advanced chips, autonomous large models, and cheap energy. They stand at the top of the food chain, harvesting global wealth.
• Loser Nations (The Data Colonies): Having missed the AI revolution or been blocked by sanctions, they become “Data Colonies.”

The fate of Loser Nations is tragic:

• Their talent is siphoned away by Winner Nations.
• Their industries are destroyed by AI (e.g., Winner Nation AI drug discovery bankrupting Loser Nation generic pharma).
• They can only trade cheap human data labeling for expensive AI access.

This isn’t a gap between “developed” and “developing” anymore; it’s a gap between “Gods” and “Mortals.” Lagging nations don’t even qualify to “revolt,” as their strategies (public opinion, networks, finance) are already predicted and neutralized by the opponent’s AI.

3. Speciation: The End of Homo Sapiens

In the most extreme deduction, this isn’t just class solidification, but Biological Speciation.

Elites with access to top-tier resources will use AI and biotechnology (BCI, gene editing) to upgrade themselves.

• Their brains connect directly to the cloud, possessing infinite memory and compute.
• Their bodies are genetically optimized, extending lifespans to 150 years.

Ordinary people remain the same original Homo sapiens—vulnerable to disease, limited in intellect. Communication between the two groups may become harder than communication between humans and chimpanzees. Humanity as a single species may end here.

Series Conclusion: Is the Choice Still Ours?

We stand at the intersection of three doors.

• Every iteration by OpenAI and DeepMind pushes us toward Door 3 (Winner-Takes-All).
• Government regulations and welfare policies push us toward Door 2 (Elysium).
• The awakening of idealists, open-source communities, and individuals is a desperate fight for a chance at Door 1 (Athenian Utopia).

This series ends here. I cannot tell you which ending will prevail. Because the code of the future isn’t just written on chips—it’s written in the Human Heart.

If technology serves profit, we end in darkness. Only if technology serves Human Dignity do we have a sliver of a chance to open the door to the light.

Good luck, carbon-based lifeforms.