22 Oct The AI Diary: World War III will be fought with code
Oct 22, 2025
No time to read? Listen on Spotify.
My previous publication is part of the “Build in Public” series, in which I walk you through the step-by-step process of building a new product and bringing it to market. Since I need some time before publishing the next article in that series, this week I’m starting a new one: “The AI Diary.”
“The AI Diary” will be a series of articles where I discuss emerging AI trends, tools, and my perspective on how the world is changing — and where it’s headed.
Psychopaths
Over the past few months, I’ve been deeply focused on watching podcast videos, reading about AI, experimenting with AI tools and LLMs as an engineer, and studying geopolitics.
I’ve come to a clearer sense of where the world may be headed. I don’t claim to know the exact future, but I do have my own subjective view of where things are going.
Open YouTube, scroll a bit, and you’ll find countless interviews with people from Silicon Valley talking about a scary future and the uncertainty we all face. Everyone seems at least somewhat afraid — or, if not afraid, then confused about what’s coming next.
I press pause, lean back on my couch, and think:
“Everyone is deeply worried, yet they’re investing millions and billions of dollars to build AGI and Superintelligence. It feels like these people are technocrats with psychological traits of psychopaths. Otherwise, I have no other explanation. Ooh, look, a train is coming — better stay on the tracks so more of us die”
Why is Everyone Rushing?
It’s not that simple. Imagine you want to live a peaceful life — sipping a cocktail on the beach and just enjoying yourself. Meanwhile, your neighbor isn’t sleeping or resting; they’re actively working to invade you and disrupt your peace. Naturally, you’ll start doing the same.
The question becomes: it’s either us or them.
World War III
You’re probably already aware, but let me say it so we’re on the same page: World War III has already begun.
See Samuel P. Huntington’s book “The Clash of Civilizations” In it, he argues that cultural and religious identities would become the primary drivers of conflict in the post–Cold War world, rather than ideological or political disputes between nation-states.
That said, World War III most likely won’t look like World War II with mass destruction, but rather a series of local conflicts in different regions around the world. For reference, look at the world map of conflicts since 2023. One reason it may not resemble World War II is the enormous potential for catastrophic, planet-wide destruction. In essence, the main driver of localized rather than global conflicts isn’t a desire for peace, but fear — fear of total destruction.
New Are of Technological Dominance
Let’s return to our peaceful life on the beach with a cocktail. It’s simply not possible.
The world order as we knew it has been disrupted by various powers, and the race to determine the next dominant force has already begun. This contest will show up in many ways, including:
- Local military conflicts
- Financial wars
- Information warfare
- Inflation
- Technological advancements
The front lines won’t be singular but dispersed — ranging from physical military conflicts to the “information” we consume through our screens, the prices we pay in stores in our neighborhoods, and the ideologies that divide societies and cause local disruptions.
All of these fronts require brains and computing power. The side that pairs superior strategy with the tools to execute in the real world is likely to win.
As for the “psychopaths” in Silicon Valley — I don’t know if they are psychopaths, but they are certainly part of this race for dominance. The price we will all pay is a profound transformation of how the world functions. The labor market will change — everything will.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but at the end of the day, this is the hallmark of war: no one truly cares about human lives or human fates.
AI Race
You already know this, but let me say it: everybody is in. To win the AI race, you need two things: hardware and energy. Hardware requires access to critical resources, and energy requires power plants to produce it.
Over the next few years and decades, we’ll likely see, among other things:
- Resource wars — battles for access to essential minerals, both economic and military.
- A push to build as many power plants as possible, whether nuclear, coal, or new technologies as they mature.
Take a quick look at the World Nuclear Association’s website. Here’s a quote from their site:
About 110 power reactors with a total gross capacity of about 110 GWe are planned, and over 300 more are proposed. Most reactors currently planned are in countries in Asia, characterized by fast-growing economies and rapidly-rising electricity demand.
My Job Is Safe — I’m Safe
A year ago, I thought that, as a software engineer, I was safe. My skills felt irreplaceable — everyone needs software, especially in an era where AI is driven by code.
Half a year later, I thought, okay, maybe prompt engineering will be the key skill. I’ll be an operator of AI agents, so I’m safe.
Another half-year later, it turns out there are AI models that can write better prompts than humans. There are already AI agents that have displaced many tasks previously done by junior software engineers.
There’s no guarantee that by 2026 all software engineers will still have jobs as we know them.
With the AI agents, MCP and AGI we can expect that by 2026–2027 many jobs around the world will be replaceable and businesses will be disrupted.
Note: “MCP” most commonly refers to Model Context Protocol, an open standard that lets AI interact with external tools and data to perform complex, real‑world tasks.
Most likely, jobs won’t be replaced immediately, but we will have the technology to do so, and eventually many will be.
So to “My job is safe — I’m safe,” I’d respond: unfortunately, it’s not.
A State of War
After everything I’ve written, I arrive at one conclusion: sitting in my chair, doing my daily routine, and hoping the world will stay as it has for the past ten years is a false comfort.
The world will change at an accelerating pace, simply because we have no other choice. This race isn’t driven primarily by economic factors or pure human curiosity to explore; it’s propelled by basic human fear — survival and national dominance.
As I write in October 2025, I believe we have one to two years — through 2026–2027 — to figure out how each of us will fit into this new world, because our jobs, businesses, and incomes will be dramatically disrupted.
Everyone must draw their own conclusions, but mine is this: over the next 1–2 years, I need 100% of my cognitive bandwidth to observe the world and adapt accordingly. It’s a state of war.