# Public Ignorance Makes Risk the Price of AI Progress by Bryant McGill > “The practical conclusion about the public's education is unavoidable, and I state it without apology. The public will not educate itself before the next AI threshold is crossed. Its representatives will not risk telling it the full truth. The AI build-out cannot stop without surrendering the century. So the country will move forward at risk, and it will do so because of the public. The risk is the cost of governing a dangerous technology through an electorate that cannot understand it, and the electorate, not the engineers and not the government, is the reason the cost exists.” > **— Bryant McGill**, *The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public, 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Original authored source:** [[articles/The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public|The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public]], “VII. The Answer Nobody Will Take” (September 29, 2026). - **Exact marked source:** “The practical conclusion about the public's education is unavoidable, and I state it without apology. The public will not educate itself before the next AI threshold is crossed. Its representatives will not risk telling it the full truth. The AI build-out cannot stop without surrendering the century. So the country will move forward at risk, and it will do so because of the public. The risk is the cost of governing a dangerous technology through an electorate that cannot understand it, and the electorate, not the engineers and not the government, is the reason the cost exists.” - **Editorial treatment:** The Reminder reproduces the complete rendered extraction surface without alteration; bold emphasis and source-only wikilink syntax are not part of the poster text. - **Context:** The passage states that the build-out must proceed and assigns the added risk to an electorate unable to understand the transition it governs. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public|The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public]] - **Companion article:** [[articles/Vertically Integrating an AI Superpower from AI Factory to Citizen|Vertically Integrating an AI Superpower from AI Factory to Citizen]] - **Companion article:** [[articles/Safety Discourse Is Transition Discourse|Safety Discourse Is Transition Discourse]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/AI Transition Governance|AI Transition Governance]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/AI Transition Governance|AI Transition Governance]] - [[wiki/Public Veto on AI|Public Veto on AI]] - [[wiki/Democratic AI Sovereignty|Democratic AI Sovereignty]] - [[wiki/Public Epistemic Capacity|Public Epistemic Capacity]] - [[wiki/AI Superpower|AI Superpower]] - [[wiki/AI Safety|AI Safety]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “The practical conclusion about the public's education is unavoidable, and I state it without apology. The public will not educate itself before the next AI threshold is crossed. Its representatives will not risk telling it the full truth. The AI build-out cannot stop without surrendering the century. So the country will move forward at risk, and it will do so because of the public. The risk is the cost of governing a dangerous technology through an electorate that cannot understand it, and the electorate, not the engineers and not the government, is the reason the cost exists.” — Bryant McGill, The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public, 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-bryant-mcgill-public-ignorance-makes-risk-the-price-of-ai-progress ```