Humanity faces four possible futures: extinction through uncoordinated technological risk, enslavement under feudal capitalism where tech oligarchs control AI, stagnation where we muddle through without progress, or transcendence through human-AI merge on collective terms. Current trajectories favor enslavement unless the open source imperative prevails and human nature is removed from governance through encoded values rather than trusted willpower.

Swedish startup Lovable’s $330M raise at a $6.6B valuation signals institutional belief that natural language will replace traditional coding. This essay explores what that means for software creation, who benefits from democratization, and whether the falling barrier to creation leads to distributed power or new forms of platform control.