September 13, 2026
THE DAILY McLUHAN DIALOGUES™ • McDialogues™
Understanding the Grammars of Electric Culture and Propaganda Science™
An Exploration of Technology Ecology as an Anchor in a Sea of Change™ and Tactical Training in Counter-Propaganda Science™
by Nelson S. Thall
Former Director/Chief Archivist, Marshall McLuhan Center On Global Communications, Ross, Ca. and McLuhan Media Scientist, Former President/Director, Marshall McLuhan Centre On Global Communications, Toronto, Canada
THE SECOND GENIE: The TECHNOTRAP™ of Unstoppable Technological Development
A Student of Technology asks:
Mr. Thall, several leading figures in artificial intelligence are now calling for the pace of AI development to be slowed, even as governments fear that rivals such as China and Russia may continue accelerating. If no nation believes it can safely be the first to slow down, are we facing something fundamentally new, or have we seen this pattern before?
Nelson S. Thall replies:
The pattern is not new. The atomic bomb was invented first and its consequences dealt with afterward. Once the nuclear genie was out of the bottle, mankind could not uninvent it. We eventually developed Mutually Assured Destruction, not to abolish the bomb but to discourage anyone from using it. More than eighty years later, we are still struggling with that genie. One of the central disputes surrounding the present war involving Iran remains control of nuclear technology and the danger of its further spread. Yet while we are still trying to contain the consequences of the first great technological genie, we are releasing another one in artificial intelligence.
Professor McLuhan used to characterize the attitude of the boys in the laboratory as essentially, “Try it out and see what happens.” That is the TECHNOTRAP™. AI enhances our power to invent, obsolesces the interval for human deliberation between invention and deployment, retrieves the arms race in a new form, and, pushed to its limit, reverses into its opposite: the men at the throttle begin calling for the brakes. If America slows development while China or Russia continues, America fears being overtaken. Rampant technological development therefore becomes self-enforcing. Nobody believes he can safely be the first to stop.
The irony is enormous. We have spent more than eighty years trying to prevent nuclear technology from destroying mankind, yet we are simultaneously accelerating another technology whose ultimate environmental effects we cannot know in advance. The deeper question is no longer merely whether AI can be controlled. It is what kind of human being is produced when technological development itself cannot be stopped. Man begins as the maker of his extensions but ends by adjusting himself to their demands. He becomes the servomechanism of his own invention. That is the TECHNOTRAP™ closing on him.
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Sources: Robert Booth and Julia Kollewe, “OpenAI boss and Elon Musk back calls to put brakes on ‘reckless’ AI development,” The Guardian, September 13, 2026. Associated Press, coverage of the continuing Iran conflict and nuclear dispute, September 13, 2026.
All intellectual property contained herein was conceived, originated and authored exclusively by Nelson S. Thall. Artificial intelligence, aka a pseudo-conscious machine (PCM), was not employed. We hired a stenographer. All rights of authorship and ownership vest entirely and exclusively with Nelson S. Thall.
© 2026 Nelson S. Thall. All Rights Reserved.
I can be reached at: nelson@themediumisthemessage.com