And now that's gone (the golden age). Free, open digital communication is closing, and we are entering a very dark period of centralized AI controlled digital lives. Forget about the Internet. It's gone. Formosahut-type sites are dying out with their maintainers, and they won't come back.

The monopolies have won.

We need a succession plan! But you're right - it's too late now to say 'Oh, AI is gonna take over our lives if we don't do something!' - the war is well & truly lost already, before a shot was even fired.

There are very smart, wealthy ORG people who have been looking into the digital future ever since the 80s, which makes me wonder how much of that data-base training of humans was part of a grand plan.

The computer/internet has always been a double-edged sword - it gave the individual more information/communication options, but it has also been deployed as a dark, dangerous monster of centralized control.
Centralization of control is nothing new - it's as old as civilization, but AI allows it to be taken to a whole new level.

When CCP first started weaponizing the internet for that purpose, i wondered whether it was even possible to put the genie back in the bottle - but it was - & as you say, we're now past the point of no return.

The only thing that could possibly alter that course is a cataclysmic reset - but that's gonna kill most of the world's population - so it's not looking real rosy either way.