Blackmail and better grades: How the AI revolution is reshaping American

As the world enters what experts call the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” American business leaders are placing a massive bet on the future of the republic.

FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria” went inside the high-stakes world of artificial intelligence, revealing how titans of banking, defense and tech are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to build out AI infrastructure and data centers that will redefine the U.S. economy.

Meta Platforms President and Vice Chair Dina Powell McCormick

McCormick discussed the launch of Meta Muse, a new visual coding AI platform for high-stakes reasoning and creative tasks. She claimed it became the second-most downloaded app on its launch day, and at its core “is about humans.”

META INFORMS STAFF OF LAYOFFS AFFECTING 8,000 EMPLOYEES AMID AI PUSH

“There’s a lot of fear out there right now, Maria, about artificial intelligence,” McCormick said. “But I think if we really go back to the fact that this is meant to give people more time to help them find their potential and passions, and that is how we are really thinking about Muse, but also the fact, frankly, that our platform every single day, there are 3.5 billion people on our platform, and that is both a daunting responsibility and really exciting because as we develop this product and these technologies, that’s the distribution that we’re talking about.”

Top leaders from names like Anthropic, Meta, Google and more joined “Mornings with Maria” for its AI week special. (Getty Images)

Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith

Smith framed the AI boom as a massive reindustrialization of America that requires a $140 billion annual investment to solve critical domestic issues like rural doctor shortages and wildfire prevention while maintaining a competitive edge over China.

“It is a big part of what President [Donald] Trump calls the industrialization of America. When you look at the economic impact of this, what we’re contributing in terms of jobs, but more importantly, what we’re contributing in terms of capabilities for every part of the economy, this is critical,” Smith said.

“I think one of the most important things that we’re doing as a company, and frankly, what the president has nudged the entire industry, quite rightly, to do is pay our own way. That means we pay for the electricity generation that we need, so that the neighbors and the taxpayers don’t have to,” he continued.

“Whenever you have AI that controls something like infrastructure, you know, autonomous robots and the like, there ought to be — we called it an emergency brake,” he added. “Look, you wouldn’t put your kids on a school bus without feeling good that there’s an emergency brake on the school bus. You…