The long game. They:

- make sure you wouldn't be in a position to need to transmit data anywhere that would receive it without CA's in their hypothetical pocket

- manage the evolution of the cloud industry to make sure portable VM's and Containers can have their data archived (both in-RAM, disk, hey just send us the running VM!)

- backdoor'd encryption algorithms from the design and implementation phase to ensure a global unlocking mechanism for any data encrypted by anybody who used a large class of extremely commonly available software

So, you run your own private bank in a cloud VM with tenant managed keys? They backdoor'd the encryption algorithm your cloud VM disk relies on, because they blackmailed one of the developers at the company who developed the hypervisor system used by your provider. Open source project? Perfect. (If you think this is nonsense, then remember the rapid discovery of ancient "bugs" causing all this drama to begin with.)

Your TLS privately generated certs that are 100% foolproof aren't actually used anywhere encrypting the data they want, because it's either worthless, or, available elsewhere perhaps at a different (or same) time.

It's too complicated. Do you know everything about CA, SSL, HTTPS, and so on? You make $250k a year working on it? Do you _really_, _really_, know everything? Then you're fired because you're lying to yourself, so you're probably unbearable to work with.

We were all freaking out about this with AT&T Thing nearly twenty years ago: and when nobody cared (Bush ran two terms! it helped to pretend AT&T was the only one affected), it gave "them" implicit permission to do it again with Google / Yahoo thing (it helped to pretend those were the only two cloud providers affected) ten years ago.

Now, we're all pretending that capitalism is real, and that the three letter agencies are just sittin' on the sidelines, while the world's largest data archiving opportunity is happening voluntarily (some are even PAYING for it!), at some wild-growth companies (with leaders who have too much to lose), who also have existed for just a few years? A 5 year old could probably blackmail Sam Altman, what about all the other middle management? The individual contributors (if they still exist) are of no concern: work is a commodity, it's easy to silo a worker's knowledge.

Surveillance opportunity is 10x social media from last decade, because they still have social media, and now, they've began thinking for people. How easy when it is an app on your smartphone. Those mind control experiments back in the 60's with Acid are looking silly by now. Besides, how do you know that the response you're getting wasn't manipulated (and define 'manipulated' across a spectrum of training to nefarious actors impersonating models, by power of court order.)

If you think all of that is unfounded ridiculous blasphemy, let me distract you with this instead: if the AI bubble bursts, the compute will be repurposed for mass AI / ML driven CCTV surveillance. Hell, maybe they'll find a way to give you a tax break if you sell your CCTV footage.

"NSA literally has MITM proxies/interception of any traffic they want inside every major US tech company" even if this statement is an exaggeration, by playing the long game, they get themselves setup to access what they want in the future.

I'm not for or against, but I do live in a safe place thanks to such surveillance (generally in the USA), and I want you to know that this AI Thing is only the latest chapter in the intelligence story.

Sorry everyone: but the conspiracy is so obviously not, it's nauseating to admit, because you see all your friends, family and co workers dumping so much everyday data into these services.

Plot twist: _Perhaps_ Mythos / Fable keeps explaining ways (that we can't comprehend or don't always work) to break HTTPS due to the three letter agencies making sure they had input on their creation (and thus backdoors, I mean "bugs"), so the real catastrophe they are hiding is that HTTPS is broken (for most people, most of the time.)

Remember when Quantum computing was the threat to HTTPS? Turns out it was the humans own inability to think outside of the box!

- find "modern AI" to have strategic importance

- have ways to spend loads of money while having a front-facing budget on the record

- could be running a PR program to have Americans think they "buy" access to models like they do, but the AI companies were taken over by these agencies long ago

Look at Google, Microsoft...Apple got away with it by having as much on-device operation as possible so they could wash their hands, honestly saying "We don't have it."

This is the world's largest data gathering operation. Remember after 9/11 when the NSA copied as much Internet back bone traffic as they could?

I'm not for or against, even as a resident, but we certainly shouldn't be naive.