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I am not one to make definitive, unequivocal claims about any matter, even when I feel I have enough information to take a position. But I will make an exception: I am confident that, on this very day next year, the world will be in a very different place.

We will find ourselves in a precarious world in which anything could happen.

About two weeks ago, a well-informed source whom I respect told me that, in a matter of months, not years, we will be using artificial intelligence in every aspect of our lives. Indeed, it is no coincidence that, among the 160 eminent figures invited to attend the royal banquet the UK’s King Charles hosted at Windsor Castle in honor of his guest President Donald Trump last week, were several owners of businesses developing the cutting-edge technologies of the future.

These technologies, foremost among them AI, have become both humanity’s ruler and the tool for ruling humanity.

The owners of this technology are the real rulers of our world, as they are the “real owners” of most governments around the globe, of ruling parties, of special interest and media groups, and of the institutions that shape — and distort — public opinion: through digital and broadcast media, surveillance, monitoring, cyber and “post-cyber” data collection.

These “ruling owners,” despite fiercely competing over billions of dollars in profits, are bound together by a political and factional shared interest in defeating rising competitors in every corner of the world, especially the Far East.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, the media of the far right in the West and beyond, were among the most prominent of the owners to attend the event in Windsor. One of Trump’s closest friends, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the giant investment firm Blackstone, which reported revenues of $13.23 billion and a net profit of $2.44 billion last year, was also there.

The peril of this new state of affairs cannot, of course, be reduced to a single individual or organization

Eyad Abu Shakra

Yet, despite the vast gulf in wealth separating these magnates from other businessmen and wealthy individuals, they aspire to global dominance — indeed, to a worldwide monopoly over all means of control and influence. This is precisely what is revealed by the conduct of Washington’s “oligarchs,” backers of Trump and funders of his political ambitions. This includes the provocations and unchecked excesses of Elon Musk and the media empire of Murdoch, which has, for decades, cultivated a culture of hatred, resentment, division and even racial incitement in Britain, America, Australia and elsewhere.

This constellation of politics, influence, wealth and technology crowned its gathering in Windsor with massive deals that will consolidate its control further, not only on people’s reactions and choices, but also on how people think, the values they hold and the social norms that shape their relationships with others and with the state and broader society.

Accordingly, the understandings and deals that emerged from the meetings between the “ruling owners” and their political “subjects” led to £150 billion ($202 billion) of US investments into the British economy — £90 billion from Blackstone alone.

Meanwhile, far away from Windsor and its financial agreements, both Washington and London were grappling with the aftermath of two extremely grave developments.

The first was the assassination of the US far-right activist Charlie Kirk on a university campus in conservative, Mormon-dominated Utah.

The second was the massive far-right protests against immigration and immigrants, and in defense of the country’s white Christian identity, on the streets of London.

Despite the arrest of the suspect, Tyler Robinson, the full details of Kirk’s assassination, especially the motives behind it, are still being investigated. Nonetheless, it has deepened the divide within American society between Trump’s camp — as Kirk was among its staunchest supporters — and his opponents. His rivals believe that Trump’s insistence on honoring Kirk as a “national hero” and his assault on unsympathetic journalists cross a line. They see the president’s positions as veiled hostility toward all the American communities that Kirk had openly antagonized and incited against.

Indeed, many political analysts dread the frightening level of polarization in the US. They are terrified that Trump could take his pursuit of critics and opponents — in the media, universities and state institutions — further.

Another “Robinson” was at the center of events in London. Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is a far-right British activist hostile to Muslims, immigrants and Black people. He has co-founded several extremist groups and has been convicted for various offences. Robinson and the organizations he worked with had previously remained on the fringes of political life, but his movement has now become a force to be reckoned with; it can mobilize more than 150,000 demonstrators and send them into the heart of London.

The peril of this new state of affairs cannot, of course, be reduced to a single individual or organization. Since Trump’s victory in the US and the rise of Britain’s anti-European Brexit isolationists, the far right has stopped being a marginal actor.

It has now, unfortunately, imposed itself electorally, as it continues to rise in the polls across the West, blackmailing governments and at times imposing its agenda, even on competitors.

Thus, humanity and the human species are facing an existential threat amid the onslaught of racism, greed and technology.

Here, it is not the tragedies of Gaza that I have in mind, nor any of the other places that are currently suffering and bleeding out. I have in mind every country in the world where human emotions and values have vanished. In my view, no immigrant community in the West is safe anymore; none of them even has the right to feel safe.

• Eyad Abu Shakra is managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published. X: @eyad1949