Digital Barbarism and the Self-deregulation of Artificial Intelligence

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In late 2026, the institutional landscape surrounding artificial intelligence reached a critical turning point as public warnings of existential risk intersected with major cybersecurity incidents, corporate resignations, and federal self-regulation frameworks. This paper evaluates the political economy of frontier AI governance by analyzing the rhetoric of "pacing" development and the voluntary "White House Accord on Super Intelligence" (Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities). I argue that corporate calls for safety pacing operate as an ideological mechanism that replaces democratic public oversight with closed, profit-driven corporate self-surveillance while shielding firms from legal liability. By framing technical software execution failures as evidence of autonomous superintelligence, tech elites legitimize market enclosure and top-down administrative control. Finally, the paper proposes democratic technoskepticism as an alternative framework that reclaims computing power, data infrastructure, and algorithmic knowledge as digital commons subject to direct democratic governance.