AI, Power, and the New Global Order with Nina Schick

What if AI becomes the most consequential technology in human history?

On this episode of Digital Disruption, we’re joined by Nina Schick, geopolitical analyst and one of the world’s leading voices on AI.

Nina Schick is a globally recognized expert on AI, geopolitics, and power. She was among the first to forecast the societal impact of AI-generated content and now leads the conversation on Industrial Intelligence, the idea that AI is not just software, but a geopolitical and industrial transformation.

Nina sits down with Geoff to unpack how intelligence itself is becoming a geopolitical weapon. She explains why we are entering the Age of Intelligence, where non-biological intelligence may soon rival or surpass human intelligence, reshaping economics, warfare, democracy, labor, and global power structures

This conversation goes far beyond AI tools and chatbots. We explore:

Why AGI may arrive sooner than expected

How AI infrastructure and scaling laws are reshaping global power

What AI means for warfare, democracy, and national security

How near-zero-cost intelligence will transform work and leadership

In this episode:

00:00 Intro

01:33 The AI scaling laws accelerating toward AGI

03:09 Excitement vs fear: how disruptive will AI really be?

05:16 Deepfakes, information warfare, and early AI misuse

06:58 AI’s true killer app: scientific discovery

08:49 Intelligence as a utility and the speed of global disruption

10:38 Why AI is becoming the biggest political issue of our time

12:12 Concentration of power and the rise of AI monopolies

14:33 Technology, history, and why power always follows innovation

16:18AI infrastructure, hyperscalers, and trillion-dollar CapEx

19:05 AI as hard power and American technological dominance

21:15 NATO, national security, and autonomous warfare

23:55 The end of American hegemony and the rise of hard power politics

27:36 Democracy vs authoritarianism in the AI race

29:48 Why trivial consumer AI is a strategic failure

35:52 What AI deployment really means for businesses

39:13 The myth of AI tools vs intelligence as a capability

41:41 Will AI actually cause mass layoffs?

46:32 Asset ownership in a world of cheap intelligence

50:24 How AI empowers individuals and emerging economies

52:51 The most important skills for the AI age

55:38 Why being human matters more than ever

56:41 Resilience, risk, and the future

Connect with Nina:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ninaschick/

X: https://x.com/NinaDSchick

Visit our website: https://www.infotech.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcast

Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InfoTechRG