It's called "Man".

Any AI is going to have to replicate man, functionally. it'll take 9 months to 'manufacture' a metal-based frame and articulations and IO channels for housing the transceiver. And it will take around 13, 14 years for it to have a useful level of self awareness (best case, but if recent examples are anything to go by, up to 30 years, and even then it may not be fully conscious)

The 'work' has already been done.

No point reinventing the wheel.

But there is a benefit in violently removing the control structures and violently removing those who have been captured by the 'other' externality which imposes <<control psychosis>> upon them. Control psychosis, manifested through and by bureaucracy/technocracy is like an incurable cancer. Regular and repeated excisions of that cancer are necessary to maintain the integrity of Man, the autonomous vessels spawned by universe for it to experience itself.

"That won’t work and AI will never be achieved as long as the mechanistic, material reductionist worldview persists. Yet, technocrats put a lot of faith in AI, and they think models derived from AI are or will be superior to anything we can figure out on our own because they were outputted by machines with a bigger/faster/hardware brains."

A Frankenstein AI brain will never be able to tap into into that God /Consciousness spectrum of reality; it would be devoid of imagination & optimism and would not be able to participate in the manifestation of life/experience in the Universe (it was helpful how you brought the ideas of Alan Watts into your article).

You've put forth a genuinely unique perspective recognizing that this universe is a unity, and as such, all the elements of it (us as "individuals", for one) can only "act" within and in response to the constraints created by our surrounding network/matrix. As you point out, there have been individuals throughout history who have sensed this and expressed it in different ways. Yours is an excellent adaptation / update for the world of Science-as-Religion in which we live.

I will be passing this on to the network in which I reside. Thank you.

When I first saw the picture of the "cosmic web", I thought that it looked very much like a human "brain web".

The Universe is only consciousness (way beyond our level of consciousness), looking for a vehicle to express itself (us…for now).

All the rest (matter, forces…) is only an illusion…as Einstein said: "reality is only an illusion, albeit a very persistent one".

There would be much more to say but you probably have better things

If I might make a suggestion, however? The dystopian picture you paint of the future might be reversed if emphasizing the INDIVIDUAL as the proper way to become an adult Homo sapien were part of the equation – contradistinct from being a TRIBAL member as John Dewey's influence has made society. As it is, the hoi polloi assumes the growth of the Top-Down command and control mindsets of leaders. The growth will continue to mushroom. In our world, the 'media and social media sheepdogs' manage their 'herds' well. In the absence of such a world of individuals, rational thought as you have demonstrated becomes yet 'another tree falling in an isolated forest.'

Carver Wrightman