The Hour of the Predator: Encounters With the Autocrats and Tech Billionaires Taking Over the World

Da Empoli, an Italian essayist, journeys through summit meetings and elite gatherings to recount the Machiavellian machinations of some of today’s autocrats, oligarchs, and tech billionaires. The old Western-led order of statesmen, diplomats, and international law is giving way to a world run by a new power elite of strongmen and tech moguls who are cynical, ruthless, self-serving, and contemptuous of the rule of law and the old norms of democratic politics. Moscow, Riyadh, Washington, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and the UN General Assembly provide the backdrop for da Empoli’s vignettes about these new “predators.” What makes today’s moment so revolutionary—and so dangerous—is the amalgam of two forces: authoritarianism and artificial intelligence. The Western defenders of the old postwar order appear hapless, unable to fully grasp the profound danger of the gathering storm. U.S. President Joe Biden, emblematic of this passing generation, is depicted as the “last transatlantic president” and the “last internationalist.” Da Em--poli foresees a world without rules or enlightened leaders, plagued by violence and chaos.