"To effectively contain a civilization’s development and disarm it across such a long span of time, there is only one way: kill its science." - Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem
This immediately made me think of the Sophons silently manipulating the sensors of particle accelerators to prevent humanity from developing advanced knowledge of particle physics.
and my mind went to the current US administration. Sigh. You made the better choice.
The level of oppression necessary to get software geeks to stop making progress on AI is similar to that necessary to get Ukrainian geeks to stop making progress on drones.