“Egotism always has the character of greed, which shows itself chiefly in three ways: the power-drive, lust, and moral laziness. These three moral evils are supplemented by a fourth which is the most powerful of all – stupidity. Real intelligence is very rare and forms statistically an infinitesimal part of the average mind.”[1]
“Greed is uncontrollable except when counteracted by an equally violent morality. Morality, however, if it extends the norm, becomes a real danger to human relationship, because it is the direct instigator of compensatory immoral behavior and thus reveals its secret root, greed.”[2]
“The accumulated greed of a nation becomes utterly uncontrollable unless counteracted by all the forces (civil and military) a government is equipped with. No suggestion works unless one is convinced of its power. Arguments are ineffectual.”[3]
“We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger, and we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied, because we are the origin of all coming evil.”[4]
“Anything that looks technological goes down without difficulty with modern man.”[5]
“Altman himself ‘has warned that artificial intelligence poses a possible existential threat.’ Now the company that’s leading the development of this technology ‘is on the verge of marginalizing any concern for humanity to instead focus on power and profit.’ This is exactly what Altman’s critics have feared.”[6]
Hack: “A clever, unintended exploitation of a system that (a) subverts the rules or norms of the system, (b) at the expense of someone else affected by the system…. Hacking is not the same as cheating.”[7]
“An economic system based on greed and self-interest only works when those properties can’t destroy the underlying system. And” Move fast and break things” – Mark Zuckerberg’s famous motto for Facebook – is only okay when it’s your own things you’re putting at risk. When somebody else’s things are involved, then maybe you should think twice – or be forced to fix what you’ve broken.”[8]
“Artificial intelligence – AI – is an information technology. It consists of software, it runs on computers, and it is already deeply embedded into our social fabric, both in ways we understand and in ways we don’t. It will hack our society in a way that nothing heretofore has done.”[9]
Some essays on our Jungian Center site arise from a student’s question, others from one of my dreams, and others, more rarely, from a synchronicity. This last is the case with this essay: a few minutes after I read an article on Sam Altman in a recent issue of The Week, a book[10] fell off a shelf in my office, and its subject addressed greed, hacking and artificial intelligence. Jung valued synchronicities, so I took this “meaningful coincidence”[11] as an incentive to investigate the connection between these three subjects.
Jung died in 1961, long before desktop computers became ubiquitous and the possible perils of AI began showing up in the news. He likely would have associated “hack” with describing the actions of a person clearing brush from an overgrown field, or using a hoe to break up ground, and, as noted in an earlier essay posted to this web site,[12]he would have taken a very dim view of “artificial” anything. He had minimal involvement with the technologies of his day: he wrote with a fountain pen, bought a car late in life, never watched television. Given his era and lifestyle, we might expect Jung to have little to say about the subjects of this essay. But no: while Jung never wrote about hacks or AI per se, he had a lot to say about our values and the drivers behind our current cultural phenomena like hacking and AI.
In this essay, I will begin by defining key terms; then I’ll consider some of the values and goads that are motivating the hackers and the creators of AI, followed by a Jungian-oriented assessment of these men.[13] Then I will note some of the challenges we face in dealing with greed, hacking and AI, and, in a final section, offer some thoughts on how we might create a positive future.
Definitions of Key Terms
Greed. The dictionary defines “greed” as “the quality of wanting more than one’s share; extreme or excessive desire.”[14] In discussing egotism, Jung wrote of “the character of greed, which shows itself in three ways: the power-drive, lust and moral laziness..”[15] And he was aware of the dangers greed presents, when he warned that “Greed is uncontrollable except when counteracted by an equally violent morality.”[16]
Jung recognized that, on the collective level, greed can accumulate, and in this situation, “the accumulated greed of a nation becomes utterly uncontrollable unless counteracted by all the forces (civil and military) a government is equipped with. No suggestion works unless one is convinced of its power. Arguments are ineffectual.”[17]
Jung regarded greed as a “varied form” of hunger… transformed into “pure greed, or … boundless desire or insatiability”…[18]. Since hunger is one of the five instincts Jung identified, and greed is a form of hunger, both are innate to human nature. We are all susceptible to desires we cannot satisfy sufficiently, and this can lead to hacking.
Hack/hacking. “Hacking is a natural part of the human condition.”[19] in the opinion of the security technologist Bruce Schneier. In his excellent book The Hacker’s Mind, Schneier provides multiple definitions of “hack” and “hacking:”[20] A “hack” is:
- “a clever, unintended exploitation of a system that (a) subverts the rules or norms of the system, (b) at the expense of someone else affected by the system[21]
- “a natural outgrowth of systems thinking”[22]
- “an attack allowed by the system that subverts the goal or intent of the system.”[23]
- something that the system allows but which is unintended and unanticipated by its designers.”[24]
- “a way of exerting power,”[25] by “finding and exploiting the rules of the system, turning them to your advantage”[26]
While hacking is natural, it can become “pervasive” and “predatory” when the system in which it is done is “flawed,”[27] i.e. manifestly inequitable, unjust and out of balance.
For those of us unfamiliar with hacking, concrete examples of hacks are helpful, and Schneier provides many instances, forms and situations involving hacking, both in our contemporary reality and in history, e.g. ATM machines,[28] casinos,[29] airline frequent flyer systems,[30] sports betting,[31] money laundering through the luxury real estate market,[32] debt financing by private equity,[33] ride-sharing apps (like Uber),[34] the government nutrition program WIC,[35] “sponsored content”[36] and pop-up ads on the Internet,[37] and fake Facebook accounts.[38] These are just some current ways hacks show up. Historically, the Chinese printing of paper money in the Sung dynasty,[39] the Catholic Church’s selling of indulgences in 1517,[40] and Elbridge Gerry’s creation of a weirdly shaped Massachusetts senate district in 1812[41] are earlier hacks which illustrate how hacking is nothing new.
Artificial Intelligence. This is “an umbrella term encompassing a broad array of decision-making technologies that simulate human thinking.”[42] Note the limitation here: AI does not simulate human feeling, which Jung recognized as our value-making function, a key feature of being human.[43] This lack of emotional intelligence creates what is called the “alignment problem” in AI technology.[44]
The “technologies” in Schneier’s definition refer to computers, very powerful computers, “that can (generally) sense, think, and act.”[45] As an “information technology,” AI uses software,[46] and has a series of features we must be aware of: autonomy (AI can act independently), automation (AIs are able “to act on preset responses to specific triggers”) and “physical agency” (AI can alter the environment we live in).[47]
Because AI operates using large-scale computer networks, it is “vulnerable to all the same types of hacks to which other computer systems are vulnerable.”[48] In addition to this, as a “subfield of AI,”[49] machine-learning systems (MLs) are “uniquely vulnerable”[50] to being hacked, and this is worrisome because ML “has come to dominate practical AI systems.”[51]
Why this domination? Because it saves both time and labor: the technologists give the computers instructions and then leave the machines to “figure solutions out for themselves.”[52] These solutions “are subtle,”[53] using “algorithms unknown to us,” unknown because these cutting-edge AI systems
“are essentially black boxes. Data goes in at one end, and an answer comes out at the other. It can be impossible to understand how the system reached its conclusion, even if you are the systems designer and can examine the code.”[54]
This is what the techies refer to as “the explainability problem.”[55]
We will consider what Jung might have made of all this in the assessment section of this essay. Before doing so, we must ask “Why?”–given all the unknowns and the problems connected with hacking and AI–why do people get into these things?
Motivations of the Creators of Hacks and AI
In any human phenomenon there are multiple motivations for why people do things. In the context of hacking, the most common motivations are power and profit: to seize or maintain control, and to maintain wealth and make more money.
Power as a motivator for hacking. Dictators use multiple skilled hackers to create and manipulate the façades of democracy (candidates, elections, voting results, etc.) to stay in power while subverting democratic norms and rules.[56] In these states, the underlying motivator is greed in the form of lust for power.
Hacking in democracies tends to be more subtle. Politicians gerrymander to try to ensure their party wins. In races that might be close, pols use hacking to sow chaos, by getting a third-party candidate on the ballot.[57] Political hacking also takes the form of spreading disinformation, fomenting mistrust, stoking up tribalism, creating false perceptions of grassroots support, and stirring up fear so as to distract the voting public.[58] Pols also have developed numerous ways to hack the system of donations, e.g. Donald Trump’s webpage interface design tricks that led contributors to donate far more money than they had intended.[59] Once in office our “public servants” use hacks to avoid public scrutiny, e.g. by attaching riders (likely containing controversial or self-serving content which the public never learns about) to must-pass bills like budget bills. Pols can then claim they voted for the bill, with no mention of the rider.[60]
Bureaucrats in the various governmental agencies use hacks out of different motivations, e.g. to make a program work more efficiently than the pols and their staffs designed it; or they may subvert the system, to keep the costs of programs low by imposing “administrative burdens:”[61] complex rules and nitpicking regulations which make it difficult or frustrating for people (especially the poor, uneducated and vulnerable) to use the benefits in the program. When abortion was still legal, some states used hacks to make it difficult or impossible for women to access the procedure.[62]
Profit as a motivator for hacking. As we noted earlier, Jung recognized that greed is insatiable,[63] i.e. no matter how rich the plutocrat, there is never enough. Given the hold materialism has on American values, plutocrats[64]dominate our politics, social systems and, inevitably, the realm of hacking.
Few wealthy persons actually do the hacking themselves: they hire technologically-adept people (invariably men) to hack for them. Hedge fund managers have stables of skilled hackers to find loopholes in the market system so as to gain advantage over their competitors.[65] The rich use hacking to protect their profit sources, to further their self-interest and thus increase their own numerous advantages, including their ability to manipulate others, like ambitious politicians and regulators.[66]
Wealthy foreigners, eager to protect their wealth, or to skirt financial regulations, use hacks, like investing in luxury real estate, which is a recognized hack getting around laws barring money laundering.[67] A sizeable percentage of the high-end real estate in London and New York, for example, is owned by people using shell companies to protect their investment.[68]
Other motivations for hacking. Power and profit are not the only motivators for hacking. “Hacking can be a force for good.”[69] Ukrainian hackers in October, 2024,”took down Russia’s state media and its entire court system, forcing four major TV stations off the air along with dozens of regional radio and TV broadcasters”–all this as a “present” for Putin’s 72nd birthday.[70] Boycotts, sit-ins and other forms of civil protests are forms of hacking that call attention to racist systems, toward ending them.[71]
Some hackers inclined toward anarchism hack simply to challenge authority. Young hackers like to see how systems work and hack to gain access to realms blocked off from them, e.g. accounts, password systems etc.[72] Other people, perhaps after having a frustrated run-in with a bureaucracy, will hack that system as a form of revenge hacking.[73]
Public-spirited hackers sometimes hack to call attention to a governmental organization whose rules and regulations have become outdated. Hacks, in such instances, are a way of forcing the government to review and update their regulations.[74]
Motivations for Developing AI. As the quote at the beginning of this essay indicates, Jung was well aware of how popular technology is for modern people. He was not amused, and he was not blind to how many people (mostly men) enjoy intellectual challenges and the competitions to which these can lead. Given our American Extraversion,[75]Americans are especially prone to follow the “new, new thing,”[76] to innovate it further and to press against any regulations that might hamper that innovation.[77]
Few areas of modern life have AI’s potential to transform our lives, to expand the range of our powers, or to make piles of money for those who find ways to tweak the systems. By designing easy-to-use methods, creators could make AI systems widely accessible, in safe applications for use in educational, commercial, governmental and other venues.[78]
Once upon a time, when technology was simpler, social media was mostly in print form, and Silicon Valley was just emerging as a tech center, we saw all sorts of high-minded mottos and statements from new companies:
“Google was founded with the motto “Don’t be evil,”… “Twitter billed itself as a public town square,” and Facebook launched to “bring the world closer together.” “It’s a recurring Silicon Valley theme of defining oneself with a lofty mission,” but that doesn’t last “in a region awash with money.”[79]
Now that tech, and AI in particular, are recognized as having major money-making potential, the AI advocates are singing another tune, one that is “marginalizing any concern for humanity”[80] so as “to instead focus on power and profit.”[81] Jonathan Gilford notes that this is “just what the critics of AI have feared.[82]
What would Jung say about all this?
A Jungian Assessment of Hackers, Technocrats and Their Creations
As I noted earlier, Jung died decades before computers, hackers and AI were on the scene, but, as a keen student of history, he could foresee where our global trends were heading:
“The medieval picture of the world was breaking up and the metaphysical authority that ruled it was fast disappearing, only to reappear in man…. when somebody hits on the singular idea that God is dead, or does not exist at all, the psychic God-image, which is a dynamic part of the psyche’s structure, finds its way back into the subject and produces a condition of “God-Almightiness,” that is to say all those qualities which are peculiar to fools and madmen and therefore lead to catastrophe.”[83]
Friedrich Nietzsche was the “somebody” Jung referred to: Nietzsche was blunt in his statement in 1882 that “God is dead.”[84] Jung knew this reflected how Western consciousness had shifted: where authority earlier was vested in a divinity above and beyond human control, now the archetype (which can never die) found “its way back into the subject” (i.e. the human being), leading to a huge inflation, with extremely serious consequences. As Jung wrote these words in 1945,[85] the “catastrophe” he refers to here might have been the recent bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which revealed to the world just how diabolical human ingenuity can be.
Eighty years later we are seeing other manifestations of the satanic side of human nature in many of the motivations behind hacking:
- the wealthy normalizing hacking for their own advantage,[86] as if the rules don’t apply to them, with the assumption that their own self-interest takes precedence over the public good[87]
- ad men and data brokers amassing and monetizing our personal information, thereby threatening our privacy in order to better capture our attention[88]
- chatbots being used to manipulate human emotions and exploit human vulnerabilities in order to persuade people to do things for commercial profit[89]
- “pick-up” men using the manipulative technique of “negging” to undermine women’s confidence and seduce them[90]
- Internet companies knowingly creating their products to be addictive[91]
- the media “finding the cracks”[92] so as to foment division and amplify a sense of threat, leading people to fear and thus be more easily manipulated
Hacking does not provide many good examples of how we humans are living up to our ideals.[93]
Jung would find the situation no better, perhaps even more problematic, with artificial intelligence. Multiple features of AI would trouble Jung, e.g. the imbalance between rationality and feeling: Jung was adamant that bothfunctions–thinking and feeling–are essential if any human enterprise is going to be successful–in the full sense of that word.[94] Ignoring or denigrating feelings leads to the “alignment problem”[95] noted earlier: the AI technocrats, with all their logic and rationality, find it had to include values in their enterprise, because the Feeling function is how we determine and live out our values.[96] Success,” to Jung, did not mean just riches, lots of money and power. He had little good to say about those who pursued wealth and power to the detriment of their humanity.[97]
The absence of values considerations is one blot Jung would see on the AI endeavor. Another is the narcissism, which Jung knew was a neurotic pathology.[98] The narcissist has little awareness of or concern for others. In his arrogance, the narcissist assumes it is fine to “move fast and break things,” even if others are harmed by his actions.[99]
A third assessment Jung would make about AI would relate to the “God-almightiness” that lies in the ambition to employ powerful computers for the purpose of creating “artificial” intelligence. Jung was explicit in his warning of what the result of such vaunting arrogance would be: “all those qualities which are peculiar to fools and madmen…”[100]–qualities like rationalization, manipulation, self-deception (and hence lying to others), immorality, polarization, divisiveness, widening inequality, injustice, exploitation of both people and the Earth,[101] and ethical blindness leading to callous disregard for potential hazards which could have immense destructive consequences, including the degradation of man “to the level of a beast or a machine.”[102]
Challenges Posed by Hacking, AI and Greed
Destruction and degradation are just two of the challenges calling for a response and this response must occur at two levels. Jung would always prioritize the individual, in his recognition that real change begins with persons, any one of which could be the “makeweight that tips the scales.”[103] Individual responses are the first and essential level. The second is societal, when, according to Jung, a “leading minority” would form, made up of persons who are “immune to the evil” and “aware of the danger to [their] own character being tainted by the same evil.”[104]
Why a “minority”? Because Jung recognized that few people are likely to take up the challenge of working for the changes needed, which include:
- recognizing the current degradation of our societal standards, e.g. the prevalence of lying, cheating etc. by public officials, sparking our becoming aware of the need for discernment.[105]
- wising up to our own shadow sides,[106] so as to become conscious of our inner trickster, as a way to equip ourselves to be conscious of the tricksters in our public realm, as part of the process of developing “immunity” from moral evil.[107]
- educating ourselves on how to spot, avoid and take counter-actions against hackers, e.g. using automated updates, patches on programs, and workshops fostering discernment and how to avoid being vulnerable to hacking.[108]
Given the growing popularity of the “Internet of Things” (“smart” appliances, voice-activated household “assistants” etc.), we as a society are becoming more and more vulnerable to the depredations of hackers.[109] So we, as a society, must recognize the ubiquity and vulnerability that hacking presents and how it is threatening our privacy and
our trust–in persons (e.g. politicians, government administrators and regulators), trust in organizations and trust in the systems our complex society relies on to function. We must remember that “systems of trust are what make society work.”[110]
It is a challenge to strengthen, or restore trust, especially since this is likely to require making changes in institutions–changes which the wealthy elites will oppose and use their power to try to block.[111] Schneier, the security technologist, has no delusions about how difficult it will be to develop and institute the governance systems we need, and to do so properly and soon.[112]
As for addressing the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, due to the unique nature of AI–its speed, scale, scope, sophistication and lack of transparency[113]–these must be handled by another type of “leading minority,” i.e. those few with the training, knowledge and personality necessary to work together, in collaborations, not competition,[114] motivated more by concern for the public good, rather than for power and profit. Schneier envisions such a team setting up a “governance structure”[115] able to work with speed, precision and transparency, preparing the “ecosystem” beforehand, so it can handle the “discontinuous jumps” that are a feature of hacking and AI.[116] And all this must be done while discerning the bad from the good hacks, destroying the bad and effectively encouraging the good hacks.[117]
Conclusion
Jung would have us be that “leading minority” that can step up to the challenges posed by greed, hacking and artificial intelligence. Ever the doctor, concerned to heal and help people grapple with what life put on their plates,[118]Jung saw the problems of his day with an empirical realism we also need to summon.
To stand against the greed of the rich and powerful, we need strength in numbers taking up the challenge to develop and support a spiritual revolution, in order to address the ethical and moral degradation of our culture, even as we take heed of Jung’s warning to avoid a “violent morality.” Why this warning? Because Jung recognized that “Morality, … if it exceeds the norm, becomes a real danger to human relationship, because it is the direct instigator of compensatory immoral behavior, and thus reveals its secret root, greed.”[119]
Note the operation of Heraclitus’ law of opposites here, which Jung understood as a truth universal in its applicability: Morality is good, but, like all things, it must be kept in balance, and it can be tempting to go overboard with it. The balance then is lost and there is a swing to the other extreme, causing other forms of immorality, which are rooted in greed, e.g.. the lust for power.[120] Moral zeal, like any form of excess, is dangerous–as we see in contemporary examples of the many clergymen who gain power in their congregations, only to succumb to temptations of sex and/or lucre.
Bruce Schneier, the security technologist, reminds us of the current stakes here, when he warns us that “Unless we can hack the process of hacking itself, keeping its benefits and mitigating its costs and inequities, we may struggle to survive this technological future.”[121] Ours is both a technological and a moral challenge, as our society must address our human propensity for greed.
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[1] Jung, Collected Works, 18, ¶1398. Hereafter Collected Works will be abbreviated CW.
[2] Ibid., ¶1399.
[3] Ibid., ¶1401.
[4] Jung (1977), 436., in the BBC “Face-to-Face interview with John Freeman.
[5] CW 10, ¶624.
[6] Guilford (2024), quoted in The Week, 34.
[7] Schneier (2023), 9.
[8] Ibid., 94.
[9] Ibid., 205.
[10] Ibid.; the title is A Hacker’s Mind.
[11] One way Jung described synchronicity; CW 10 ¶593.
[12] “Jung, Humanitas and Artificial Intelligence,” posted on June 29, 2023.
[13] This is not sexist: the vast majority of hackers and AI actors are white males, and Schneier explains why: “Women are taught to follow the rules, while white men are taught to break them if they can.” And he adds: “This is an important consideration to keep in mind when thinking about hacking and power.” Schneier (2023), 120.
[14] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, I, 870.
[15] CW 18 ¶1398.
[16] Ibid. ¶1399.
[17] Ibid., ¶1401.
[18] CW 8 ¶236.
[19] Schneier (2023), 28.
[20] Schneier notes that “the definition of hacking depends on context.” ibid., 159.
[21] Ibid., 9.
[22] Ibid., 20.
[23] Ibid., 2.
[24] Ibid. 9.
[25] Ibid., 119.
[26] Ibid., 109.
[27] Ibid. , 248.
[28] Ibid., 31-34.
[29] Ibid., 35-37.
[30] Ibid., 38-40.
[31] Ibid., 41-44.
[32] Ibid., 88.
[33] Ibid., 101.
[34] Ibid., 123; the “hack” here is done so as to avoid all the regulations placed on the taxi industry.
[35] Ibid., 134; the hack here is done by the government itself, by imposing administrative burdens so complex and onerous that thousands eligible to use it fail to do so, thus saving the government money, illustrating how many hacks hurt the poor and vulnerable.
[36] Ibid., 194.
[37] Ibid. 198.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid., 174.
[40] Ibid., 72-73.
[41] Ibid., 166. This is the origin of our word “gerrymander.” Gerry hacked for the same purpose politicos gerrymander today: to fracture the votes of opponents and strengthen the votes of his own party.
[42] Ibid., 206. Schneier adds that “this definition isn’t canonical, but defining AI is hard.”
[43] See CW 8 ¶s14-17 for Jung’s discussion of the value and uses he made of the Feeling function and the premium he puts on values and valuation in his work with patients.
[44] For an in-depth discussion of the alignment problem, see Christian (2020).
[45] Schneier (2023), 206. By “very powerful” I mean they exceed the current capability of the “smart” phone.
[46] Ibid., 205.
[47] Ibid., 207.
[48] Ibid., 209.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Ibid., 211.
[54] Ibid. 212.
[55] Ibid.; cf. Christian (2020), 89-90, for more on the explainability problem.
[56] Schneier (2023), 175.
[57] Ibid., 173.
[58] Ibid., 194.
[59] Ibid., 182.
[60] Ibid., 150.
[61] Ibid., 132.
[62] Ibid., 133.
[63] CW 8 ¶236.
[64] “Plutocrat” is a conflation of two Greek works (ploutos + krateo), “rich” + “ruling;” Liddell & Scott (1978), 648, 448.
[65] Schneier (2023), 90.
[66] Ibid., 91.
[67] Ibid., 86-88.
[68] In the United Kingdom alone, 160 properties are owned by “high-corruption-risk individuals.” Ibid., 87.
[69] Schneier (2023), 4.
[70] The Week (October 18, 2024), 9.
[71] Schneier (2023), 175.
[72] Ibid., 194.
[73] Ibid., 154.
[74] Ibid., 74.
[75] 75% of Americans are Extraverts; Keirsey & Bates (1984), 25.
[76] This is the title of Michael Lewis’ study of the infatuation with novelty in our society; Lewis (2000).
[77] Schneier (2023), 94.
[78] For specifics on how AI is already enriching education, cf. Khan (2024) and Mollick (2024).
[79]Parmy Olson, quoted in The Week (October 11, 2024), 34.
[80] Guilford (2024), 34.
[81] Ibid.
[82] Ibid.
[83] CW 10 ¶437.
[84] “The Gay Science,” section 125.
[85] CW 10 ¶400, note 1.
[86] Schneider (2023), 104.
[87] Ibid., 3.
[88] The development of the “Internet of Things” (IoT) carries the invasion of our privacy into our homes, with the “smart” refrigerators, devices that turn on our lights by a voice command etc.–all of this leaving users vulnerable to hacks, with potentially disastrous consequences.Ibid., 14.
[89] Ibid., 188,
[90] Ibid. 198.
[91] Ibid., 185-186.
[92] Ibid., 197.
[93] Ibid., 237.
[94] CW 18 ¶212. This does not mean that our thinking and feeling would be equally strong, but we must have access to, and recognize the utility of both. Recent articles claiming that “A.I. will soon be Smarter than humans,” focuses solely on the “cognitive tasks a human can do,” i.e. only on the thinking function, ignoring feelings, values and the need to balance both functions. See Roose (2025).
[95] This is the focus of Christian (2020).
[96] CW 8 ¶17.
[97] Jung (1984), 621-2, 632.
[98] CW 15 ¶102.
[99] Schneier (2023), 94.
[100] CW 10 ¶437.
[101] The size and energy demands of the computers able to run AI and large machine-learning systems are enormous, with negative consequences for our goals of energy conservation and development of renewable energy sources; Gelles (2024), 4BU.
[102] CW 10 ¶204.
[103] CW 10 ¶586.
[104] CW 18 ¶1400.
[105] For more on the prevalence of lying by public figures, see the blog essay “Jung on Lying;” cf. Cf. Cruz & Buser (2017), Lee (2017), Posner (2020) & Trump (2020) for these and many other features of Trump’s personality and psychology.
[106] CW 10 ¶579.
[107] CW 18 ¶1400. For Jung on the trickster, see his essay “On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure,” CW 9i ¶s456-488.
[108] Schneier (2023), 50.
[109] Ibid., 54. Schneier notes how the firmware in some devices is not patchable, leaving the device vulnerable to being hacked. Know your devices!
[110] Ibid., 27.
[111] Ibid., 4.
[112] Ibid., 252.
[113] Ibid., 205 & 247.
[114] Ibid., 245
[115] Ibid..
[116] Ibid., 141.
[117] Ibid., 4.
[118] CW 18 ¶1633.
[119] Ibid. ¶1399.
[120] A historical example here is the life of the 15th century Florentine friar Savonarola, who imposed a puritanical regime on Florence in the 1490’s. He attracted “many enthusiastic supporters,” and by 1497 had become the “virtual dictator” of the republic. He enlisted children to collect all manner of “vanities” from the populace and held big bonfires to destroy them, in a “hysterical pitch of zeal.” Needless to say, such “compensatory immoral behavior” could not be sustained indefinitely, and the pope excommunicated Savonarola, who had succumbed to power lust. Brinton et al. (1960), I, 454, 473-474.
[121] Schneier (2023), 252.
