Don’t you just love AI? It has inundated the internet with slop, destabilized the concept of truth, and made it much easier to bomb people. And that’s just the beginning. As we look towards the future of our brave new world, AI might also disrupt all those pesky highly-educated female voters who keep casting a ballot for Democrats.

To be clear: that assessment isn’t coming from me, a highly exhausted female who wishes the Democrats would work a little harder for people’s votes. Rather, it’s coming from one of the key architects of our glorious AI-driven economy: Alex Karp, the co-founder and CEO of tech firm Palantir.

On Thursday Karp sat down with CNBC to chat about Palantir’s AI-driven Maven Smart System, which the US military is using to visualize potential targets and “nominate” them to be bombed. As well as talking about how America’s “lethal capabilities” make it very special, Karp stressed the extent to which AI is going to shift the political landscape.

“The one thing that I think that even now is underestimated by all actors in industry … is how disruptive these technologies are,” Karp said. “If you are going to disrupt the economic and therefore political power significantly of one party’s base – highly educated, often female voters who vote mostly Democrat, and military and working-class people who do not feel supported – and you believe that that’s going to work out politically, you’re in an insane asylum.”

He added: “Like … this technology disrupts humanities-trained – largely Democratic – voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters. These disruptions are going to disrupt every aspect of our society.”

Got that everyone? Disruption, disruption, disruption. And in case you didn’t catch it: disruption.

Once you get beyond all the disruptive disruptions, it seems that what Karp is saying is that AI is eventually going to hurt the economic position of Democrats in general, and highly educated female voters in particular – and that will have knock-on effects politically. Meanwhile working-class male voters will emerge as the winners of our reshaped economy.

The extent to which this is accurate is debatable; blue-collar jobs may be less vulnerable to AI in the short-term, but technology is coming for those occupations too. However, I think the really interesting question here is this: was Karp’s assessment a warning or was it a sales pitch?

Many people have interpreted it as the latter. The New Republic, for example, interpreted this as a “a direct, long-term pitch to the GOP from a CEO whose tech firm already has numerous government contracts and is deeply embedded in the Pentagon”. Karp’s message is clear, Malcolm Ferguson writes: “My technology will take political capital away from one of your greatest enemies – liberal women with degrees – and give one of your favorite demographics to patronize – working-class men – more political power to transfer to you.”

This certainly seems to track with the political positions of Karp and his fellow Palantir founder, Peter Thiel. Karp has declared that Palantir is “completely anti-woke” and, as we all know, feminism and women’s rights are very woke-coded. Meanwhile Thiel has strongly suggested that giving women the vote was an error. In 2009 he published an essay lamenting how female suffrage had impacted libertarianism, writing: “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”

I don’t know about that but, increasingly, it seems like the idea of an “AI democracy” is an oxymoron. There’s a reason that the Trump administration, and Donald Trump himself, love AI so much: it is an autocrat’s dream. It makes disseminating propaganda much easier. It makes manufacturing consent for wars easier and killing people in those wars faster. And when you bomb a school full of little girls in those wars, then “whoops, the AI was responsible” is a very useful excuse. And, as AI disrupts the economy and the political landscape, it gives oligarchs an unprecedented opportunity to reshape the world to their liking. A chance, to echo Karp, to reduce the “economic power” of the “highly-educated female voters” they seem to loathe. Trump’s presidency is one long revenge tour, and AI is ushering in the next chapter.

Marco Rubio is walking around in clown shoes

Photos of the secretary of state hobbling around in oversized shoes made the rounds online after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was guessing his favourite sycophants’ foot size and then ordering them shoes. “All the boys have them,” one unnamed White House official told the Journal. Another said: “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.”

Judge rejects divorce request of woman abused by husband in Afghanistan

A new criminal code given to courts last year – and publicized in January – essentially gives a green light to domestic violence in Afghanistan. Men are allowed to beat their wives as long as they do not use “obscene force”. One woman profiled by the Guardian this week tried to get a divorce from her abusive husband but was belittled by the Taliban court. “A little anger and a few beatings won’t kill you,” she was reportedly told.

Australian designer wins Katie Perry v Katy Perry dispute

After a legal battle lasting almost 17 years, Australia’s high court found that a Sydney fashion designer behind the Katie Perry label did not breach trademark laws and her brand was not likely to cause confusion with the US pop star. The other Perry (who was actually born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson) seems to be taking her legal defeat in her stride; she is very busy sharing photos of boyfriend Justin Trudeau’s nostrils.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza inflicts compounded harms on women and girls

“Women in Gaza are being denied the conditions needed to live and to give life safely,” says Amnesty International in a new report. “This systematic erosion of their rights to health, safety, dignity and a future is not an unfortunate by-product of war; it is a deliberate act of war targeting women and girls.” Gaza has slipped from coverage ever since the so-called ceasefire came in. But as the Amnesty report makes clear, the genocide is ongoing.

Fears for women’s rights in Chile as anti-abortion president set to take office

José Antonio Kast, whose father was a member of the Nazi party, has consistently blocked women’s rights and equality efforts. As a congressman, he even voted against divorce when Chile became one of the last countries of the world to legalize it in 2004.

Wyoming governor signs ban on abortion at approximately six weeks

The ban on abortion after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected (which is around six weeks, and often before a woman knows she is pregnant) does not include exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Republican governor Mark Gordon said he had a few misgivings about that part – but clearly not enough not to sign the draconian bill.

The week in pawtriarchy

While Americans are leaving the US in record numbers, one cunning fox just travelled 3,400 miles by sea to relocate stateside. The sly little fella slipped on a cargo ship at Southampton and was discovered in New York. He’s now being looked after at the Bronx Zoo. Let’s hope he has all the right paw-pers or Ice, who treat migrants like animals, might put him in another sort of enclosure.

• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist