And the smart machines are not actually "smart".
They are hardware - built in factories; running software programs - written by techies, powered by batteries - made in other factories. When the batteries run down the machines don't die. They are recharged, resurrected from the dead, put back in service doing their gods' work.
The corporations that build and own and employ the machines don't die either. Their human owners and managers come and go, live and die. But the corporations live forever. Except the corporations are not alive. They are legal constructs - a stack of papers in a filing cabinet. The human owners and managers serve the insatiable need of the eternally lifeless legal construct: grow bigger, and profit.
The corporation has a singular mission: maximize profits. Growing bigger maximizes sales revenues. Human workers are a cost. Corporations replace paid workers with unpaid machines to minimize costs and maximize profits. It is the logic of anti-Spock. The needs of the few legal constructs outweigh the needs of the many redundant humans.
The machines (and corporations) are not alive. They are not conscious. They cannot feel, or think, or experience, or know. They do not decide for themselves what they will do - or not do. The machines are neither smart nor stupid. They are manufactured hardware running manufactured software programs. The machines do what they were made to do.
Everything they do is determined by the "smart" technocrats who built and programmed the machines. They wound up their mechanical toy and set it loose. "Look! It's moving by itself! It's alive! It's smart!" The technocrats love their little machines, their progeny, their legacy to the sustainable future.
But technocrats don't love people, because people are unsustainable and redundant. And stupid. Bunch of stupid populists.
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