A concise news summary based solely on the provided article body: The article warns that with artificial intelligence, information owned by the public can be manipulated to benefit special interests. Stephen Hawking warned that AI could bring about the end of the human race, a concern shared by AI developers including Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Elon Musk, and Geoffrey Hinton. The author argues that if AI is an existential threat, government must act, but it has taken a hands-off approach, allowing the AI industry to write the rules. The article compares this to the hands-off approach to the internet, which led to devastating consequences for democracy, including viruses, data breaches, misinformation, disinformation, and cybercrime, with global cybercrime costs estimated at up to $10.5 trillion annually. The spread of online disinformation and misinformation is described as a consequence of a key design feature of social media that monetizes user engagement by rewarding rapid, emotional sharing. The article concludes that leaving the internet to its own devices was a failure and that the same mistake cannot be made with Artificial Intelligence.