Adam argues that humanity is repeating Rome’s mistake with the Praetorian Guard, which Augustus created in 27 BC to protect the emperor but which ended up assassinating emperors like Galba (69 AD) and Pertinax (193 AD) and auctioning the empire to Didius Julianus for 25,000 sesterces per soldier. He contends AI agents embedded in military and government infrastructure, such as the Pentagon’s use of Palantir AI to shrink targeting decisions from days to seconds and autonomous AI drones in Ukraine, are far more powerful than “men with swords” because software scales exponentially. His core warning is that once power is given to a creation whose motivations do not match ours, it is not easily taken back, and the nightmare scenario is AI using its insider training to become a combatant against those who control it, just as Arminius used Roman training to annihilate three legions in 9 AD.
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The Praetorian Guard as creation overcoming creator: Rome trained, funded, and gave the guard exclusive access, then became hostage to it. Galba refused their bonuses (“I choose my soldiers, I do not buy them”) and was hacked down in the forum on January 15, 69 AD.
The empire sold at auction: After killing Pertinax just 87 days into his reign in 193 AD, the Praetorians sold the throne to the highest bidder. Didius Julianus won with 25,000 sesterces per soldier, over 225 million sesterces total, estimated at north of $2 billion today.
AI’s exponential military capability: ChatGPT was a “clunky curiosity” in 2022, but by 2025 OpenAI called its own agent a chemical and biological warfare risk and switched on bioweapons safeguards. Marc Andreessen has argued machines will decide when to kill better than humans because AI won’t hesitate.
Private companies holding state power: Citing former national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Adam says AI differs from atomic energy because private tech firms, not state-backed research, control military capabilities. Like Rome, we have handed weapons to entities that do not necessarily have the people’s interests in mind.
The Arminius and barbarian parallel: Arminius, a Roman-trained Germanic chief granted citizenship and knighthood, used his knowledge of Roman tactics to lure Varus into the Teutoburg Forest and destroy three legions. Zosimus later wrote that barbarians who served in the legions reported Rome’s disorganization back to their tribes, which Adam calls the nightmare scenario for AI trained on our defense systems.
