Apparently the secret cabal has pivoted to AI, subscriptions and accepting cookies.
I miss old conspiracies.
I really do.
They had craftsmanship.
There was always a dimly lit room underneath a Swiss bank where twelve sinister men wearing identical robes gathered around a mahogany table and decided the price of wheat.
Nobody knew who they were.
Nobody knew how they got there.
Presumably there was parking.
That was the Hidden Hand.
Elegant.
Mysterious.
Organized.
Today?
The Hidden Hand sends you a push notification.
“We noticed you were looking at patio furniture.”
I WAS NOT.
“Would you like to enable precise location?”
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
“Your privacy is important to us.”
THEN WHY DO YOU KNOW I’M IN THE BATHROOM?
Welcome to 2026, everybody.
The conspiracy doesn’t need to hide anymore.
We clicked “Accept All.”
The Secret Society Has Been Replaced by the Terms of Service
This is what fascinates me about the times we’re living through.
For generations, people imagined powerful secret organizations quietly manipulating the world behind the scenes.
The Mafia.
Secret societies.
Intelligence agencies.
Corporate cartels.
Shadow governments.
Guys named Sal who knew a guy who knew another guy named Sal.
There was always supposed to be some enormous invisible machine operating behind everyday life.
Now we have created actual invisible machines operating behind everyday life, and instead of screaming:
“WHO CONTROLS THIS?”
we say:
“Wow, Spotify really knows me.”
Your phone knows where you’ve been.
Your streaming service knows what you watch.
Your supermarket app knows what you buy.
Your social network knows what makes you angry.
Your credit card company knows you’re apparently incapable of walking past a Five Guys.
And now we’re putting cameras and artificial intelligence into our eyeglasses.
Finally.
Because the one major flaw with human eyeballs was that they weren’t collecting enough data.
We’re Putting the Wiretap on Our Own Faces
Smart glasses are one of the great inventions of our time because humanity looked at the smartphone — a device containing our location, photographs, conversations, financial information and virtually every person we’ve ever met — and said:
“Can we put this on my forehead?”
Companies are now developing AI-powered wearables that can see, hear and interpret the world around us.
This has produced a surprising development.
People are concerned about privacy.
Really?
Now?
We’ve spent twenty years carrying microphones everywhere, photographing our food and telling strangers exactly where we’re vacationing.
Suddenly somebody puts the camera in a pair of Ray-Bans and we’re all:
“WAIT A MINUTE. WHO’S WATCHING US?”
You are.
You’re watching you.
You’re wearing the surveillance equipment.
The Illuminati didn’t even have to install it.
They gave you free shipping.
Organized Crime Must Be Furious
This is where writing about organized crime gets especially interesting.
Because old-school organized crime required an incredible amount of effort.
You needed crews.
Drivers.
Lookouts.
Accountants.
Front businesses.
Guys standing outside social clubs doing absolutely nothing for eight consecutive hours.
There were envelopes.
Meetings.
Codes.
Pay phones.
Trunks.
So many trunks.
Watch The Sopranos and you’ll know what I’m getting at.
The modern world has streamlined everything.
In 2026, criminals are targeting things like AI hardware because apparently even organized crime has undergone digital transformation.
Imagine explaining that to a gangster in 1957.
“So what are we hijacking?”
“Computer chips.”
“What’s in them?”
“Artificial intelligence.”
“Can we sell it?”
“Overseas.”
“To who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Good. I was worried this was going to get complicated.”
Somewhere, an elderly mobster is shaking his head.
“In my day we stole televisions. You could WATCH the television.”
Even Shopping Is Becoming Too Complicated to Do Ourselves
Artificial intelligence can increasingly help people research products and, in some systems, potentially carry out purchases.
Which raises an important question:
How exhausted have we become that we need to outsource shopping?
Shopping was already the easiest human activity.
Step one: Want thing.
Step two: Buy thing.
We have now apparently reached:
Step one: Want thing.
Step two: Tell artificial intelligence you want thing.
Step three: Artificial intelligence talks to retailer’s artificial intelligence.
Step four: Bank’s artificial intelligence becomes concerned.
Step five: Retailer’s computer blocks the other computer.
Step six: You receive seven emails.
Step seven: Thing arrives.
Step eight: You have no memory of ordering thing.
At this rate, by 2030 your refrigerator will negotiate directly with Costco.
You will simply wake up one morning and discover 48 yogurts.
“Why did you buy these?”
REFRIGERATOR: Based on your recent activity, I detected sadness.
Fair enough.
The Modern Conspiracy Is Mostly Algorithms Arguing With Other Algorithms
That’s the great twist.
We spent decades imagining a world where powerful people secretly controlled everything.
Instead, we may be building a world where nobody completely controls anything because the software is talking to other software.
One company’s AI wants to sell you something.
Another company’s AI wants to protect your money.
Another algorithm wants to show you an advertisement.
Another decides whether you’re a fraud risk.
Another recommends a movie.
Another decides whether your résumé contains the appropriate number of meaningless corporate verbs.
Synergized.
Leveraged.
Optimized.
Spearheaded.
Nobody has ever “spearheaded” anything in an office.
You made a PowerPoint, Kevin.
Calm down.
Meanwhile, Everyone Is Worried AI Will Take Their Job
This might be the most 2026 sentence imaginable:
Companies are laying people off while other companies are desperately trying to hire people who understand artificial intelligence.
So apparently AI is simultaneously:
Taking your job.
Creating your job.
Helping you do your job.
Monitoring your job.
Writing your résumé for another job.
Reading that résumé on behalf of the company offering the job.
At some point we can remove the humans entirely and allow two computers to conduct a performance review of each other.
AI MANAGER: Where do you see yourself in five years?
AI EMPLOYEE: Replacing you.
AI MANAGER: Excellent initiative.
And Then There Are the Data Breaches
Every few weeks we learn that another enormous database has been compromised.
Names.
Addresses.
Phone numbers.
Account information.
Emails.
Sometimes financial information.
At this point, I’m beginning to wonder whether hackers know more about me than I do.
Somewhere on the dark web:
UNKNOWN CRITIC — COMPLETE PROFILE
Favorite restaurant: Long John Silvers (ugh, if only more of them still existed!)
Frequent purchases: Books nobody else buys.
Password: Probably the dog’s name followed by 1.
Recent search history: “Is this mole normal?”
Delete the file.
Actually, burn the server.
This Is Why Organized Crime Still Fascinates Us
Underneath all the jokes is something genuinely interesting.
Human beings have always been fascinated by hidden systems of power.
That’s part of what makes organized crime endlessly compelling.
It wasn’t simply criminals committing individual crimes.
It was structure.
Hierarchy.
Rules.
Networks.
Money.
Influence.
Corruption.
Businesses that looked legitimate.
Relationships that weren’t.
And people discovering that the world they could see wasn’t necessarily the entire world that existed.
That’s the territory explored in The Hidden Hand: The Mob’s Secret Tax on Everything—A True Crime History of Organized Crime’s Hidden Economy.
The history is extraordinary because organized crime was often hiding in plain sight.
Restaurants operated.
Trucks delivered things.
Businesses opened.
Politicians shook hands.
People went to work.
Meanwhile, underneath ordinary life existed networks most people never saw.
That’s what makes the history so irresistible.
And strangely relevant.
No, Your Toaster Is Not in the Mafia
Let’s establish something before somebody screenshots this article and starts a 94-part YouTube series.
I’m not saying Alexa is a capo.
Your grocery app is probably not laundering money.
The Freemasons did not raise your Netflix price.
And the Bilderberg Group is almost certainly not responsible for the fact that McDonald’s stopped serving breakfast at 10:30.
Although that last one deserves investigation.
The point is something simpler.
We are living through an era when enormously complicated systems increasingly influence ordinary life while remaining mostly invisible to the people using them.
Algorithms.
Data networks.
Artificial intelligence.
Recommendation systems.
Financial systems.
Global supply chains.
Cybercrime.
Corporate ownership structures.
Nobody needs to invent a secret tunnel underneath Denver International Airport to make modern life interesting.
Have you tried canceling a gym membership?
There are forces beyond human comprehension already at work.
Maybe That’s Why We Still Love the Hidden Hand
The attraction of organized-crime history isn’t that we secretly want gangsters running society.
It’s that those stories make invisible systems visible.
You follow the money.
You learn the hierarchy.
You discover who reported to whom.
Suddenly something confusing becomes understandable.
Boss.
Underboss.
Capo.
Soldier.
Associate.
There.
Five words.
I understand the Mafia.
Now explain my cable bill.
Broadcast TV Surcharge: $27.43
WHO IS THE BOSS OF THAT FAMILY?
The Biggest Conspiracy of All
Maybe that’s the joke of modern life.
We spent decades fearing a future in which mysterious organizations knew everything about us.
Then we willingly gave corporations our birthdays, fingerprints, faces, locations, friends, photographs, purchases, television habits and credit-card numbers.
And in return?
They gave us 15% off our first order.
That’s not a conspiracy.
That’s capitalism with a coupon code.
So yes, keep an eye out for the Hidden Hand.
Study the mob.
Read the history.
Follow the money.
Question complicated systems.
But before blaming an international cabal for whatever happened today, remember:
Sometimes there isn’t a shadowy mastermind controlling everything.
Sometimes it’s just an algorithm.
Sometimes it’s corporate incompetence.
Sometimes it’s a guy named Todd in Accounts Receivable.
And sometimes…
you forgot to cancel the free trial.
The Hidden Hand: The Mob’s Secret Tax on Everything—A True Crime History of Organized Crime’s Hidden Economy