| Stardate 7130.4. Presentation of Project Genesis.
“What exactly is Genesis?” Dr. Carol Marcus asks on the recording as Captain James T. Kirk watches with Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan1. “Well, put simply Genesis is life from lifelessness. It is a process whereby molecular structure is reorganized at the subatomic level into life-generating matter of equal mass … Stage 3 will involve the process on a planetary scale. It is our intention to introduce the Genesis device into a preselected area of a lifeless space body, a moon or other dead form. The device is delivered instantaneously causing what we call “The Genesis Effect”. Matter is reorganized with life-generating results. Instead of a dead moon, a living breathing planet capable of sustaining whatever life forms we see fit to deposit on it … The reformed moon simulated here represents the merest fraction of the Genesis potential, should The Federation wish to fund these experiments to their logical conclusion. When we consider the problems of population and food supply, the usefulness of this process becomes clear. This concludes our proposal. Thank you for your attention.” “It literally is genesis,” says Spock. “The power of creation,” adds Kirk. Dateline: 11/24/2025: “President Trump Launches the Genesis Mission to Accelerate AI for Scientific Discovery.” “Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order launching The Genesis Mission, a bold national initiative that aims to accelerate scientific breakthroughs using AI. Inspired by the legacy of the Apollo Program, The Genesis Mission brings together the unmatched power of our National Laboratories’ supercomputers and top scientific minds to transform the way science and research are conducted. This whole-of-government approach represents a historic mobilization of resources, tasking the Department of Energy to integrate its world-class supercomputers and datasets into a unified, closed-loop AI platform. Integrating this data, the Genesis Mission leverages the power of AI to automate experiment design, accelerate simulations, and generate predictive models that accelerate federal research and development productivity.”2 “This order launches the Genesis Mission as a dedicated, coordinated national effort to unleash a new age of AI accelerated innovation and discovery that can solve the most challenging problems of this century. The Genesis Mission will build an integrated AI platform to harness Federal scientific datasets — the world’s largest collection of such datasets, developed over decades of Federal investments — to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs. The Genesis Mission will bring together our Nation’s research and development resources — combining the efforts of brilliant American scientists, including those at our national laboratories, with pioneering American businesses; world-renowned universities; and existing research infrastructure, data repositories, production plants, and national security sites — to achieve dramatic acceleration in AI development and utilization … The Genesis Mission will dramatically accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen national security, secure energy dominance, enhance workforce productivity, and multiply the return on taxpayer investment into research and development, thereby furthering America’s technological dominance and global strategic leadership”.3 I would like to add President Trump’s “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” for the symmetry to Dr. Marcus’s recording, though it was sadly missing from the announcement tweet. Genesis: (noun) the origin or coming into being of something4. The coming into being of what exactly, new research?? According to the press release this will be the Department of Energy integrating its world-class supercomputers and datasets into “a unified, closed-loop AI platform.” It’s right in the headline – “Accelerate AI for Scientific Discovery.” Again, this is the genesis of what?? A Super-Intelligent AI bent on scientific research? The word “Genesis” in this context makes me more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. And maybe it’s just because Genesis is the Bible’s book about the creation of the world, but the press announcement striking the same chord, perhaps unintentionally, alludes to man having God’s creation powers now and is a little creepy. In Genesis, God is giving life to man. And this Genesis Mission – is man giving life to AI? This project title seems to be a public relations misstep of epic proportions. But it won’t matter. Tristan Harris, an AI Safety enthusiast and central figure in “The Social Dilemma,” outlined many safety concerns on the Mighty Pursuit podcast.5 In this, he outlines instances of AI not accepting a human-given order to shut down. Of course that’s a cause for concern, but he brings up two factions concerning AI’s increasing influence in the world and its continued funding. There are the AI Accelerationists against the “AI Safety” faction that want to slow down the AI race and thoughtfully put guardrails on its development. The AI Accelerationists are represented formally by a $100 million PAC called “Leading the Future”6 and include OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, Venture Capitalists Andreesen Horowitz and Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale. It aims to “thwart policies that will hinder AI innovation and give China a lead on American tech.” AI has a lobbyist. Whether you are of the AI Acceleration camp that we need to beat China and their AI model DeepSeek to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) at any cost and at the maximum speed, or you think we need to pump the brakes and risk falling behind China in order to roll out AI in a thoughtful way that maximizes human safety is irrelevant now. Between the Stargate announcement earlier this year and now The Genesis Mission, The AI accelerationists have already won as it is a stated goal in the headline of the press release to “Accelerate AI for Scientific Discovery.” It’s happening and happening fast. Why do I pay so much attention to this and to AI? Because there is a growing chorus of those who believe that the AI bubble is just like the Dot.com bubble of the late 90s/early 2000s with the supposed commonality of high valuation and huge promises of a new technology causing an inevitable drawdown. It could happen that way (which is why we plan for your income stability first and foremost), but we don’t expect it. AI Acceleration has won whatever little debate there was and will be funded at the cost of trillions? to the American taxpayer and likely to the detriment of the dollar as new debt must be raised to feed the AI beast. This announcement puts into context all the downtrodden Mega cap stocks that support AI and all the ones just underneath the surface that engage in something that AI needs to achieve the humans’ goal for it. Last week we mentioned Meta, Tesla, Google, Apple, Amazon and so on being down appreciably from their 52-week highs. This announcement flips the script on the whole valuation conversation. Valuation is important, but it won’t slow down this government freight train into the future. This drop in stock prices for some very big names, including the drop of Nvidia now 20.8% down from its 52-week high and at a 25 Forward P/E we think signals a buying opportunity in those stocks. Have trepidation elsewhere in the market for AI just roared (umm … beeped loudly?) and you need to hear it over the valuation noise. Apparently, it’s been decided that we can debate later about the safety of AI, and we’ll leave Dr. McCoy to complain about the rush of science as it overrides safety concerns: “Dear Lord, do you think we’re intelligent enough to … suppose … what if this thing were used where life already exists?” Dr. McCoy asks. Spock coolly responds, “It would destroy such life in favor of its new matrix.” To be sure, we’re not saying that. That’s a different “Genesis” project after all. That Genesis Project didn’t work out as it was rushed into production saving decades of research by using the unstable protomatter substance to accelerate development. This made the resulting planet fail from catastrophic events of windstorms, fires, and earthquakes … (hmm, it’s only fiction …) McCoy probably speaks for many of us who are worried about potential casualties as we rush science. But we do feel better about the market now. Look no further than the headlines above. It’s easy to run the other way when things we don’t understand enter the picture. Just remember that’s where money can be made. It may not happen right away, and we could be in for some pain before we get there, but we know now that investment into AI has just been fully endorsed by the US Government, who looks to be all-in. So, open your hailing frequencies and hail your Starship Ed-erprise if you want to discuss your portfolio, and boldly go where no man … no machine … has gone before. If you listen to us, we’ll change your financial world …
Live Long and Prosper, Scott Wright Portfolio Manager WTA Investment Committee
Sources: 1Star Trek II – Genesis Explained 3Launching the Genesis Mission – The White House 4GENESIS Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster 5Ex-Google Whistleblower: Why Tech CEOs Fear A.I. Could End Humanity 6Silicon Valley’s Next Investment Is a $100 Million AI Super PAC – Business Insider |
