Growing up in Florida in the 80s and 90s, I was continuously told the state would be underwater, any day now. You’d see it on local and national news. In his film An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore predicted it based on a hypothetical 20-foot global sea-level rise and used it to illustrate the devastation which would occur in the state. No devastation ever happened, my mother’s house is just fine, earlier this year I visited South Beach and stayed right on the ocean at the same place I swam as a kid. They’re still building new skyscrapers, interesting how the insurers, actuaries and developers all greenlight these things.
This continues the tradition of decades before, where we had the most influential crank in modern history (one of the fathers of the so-called “environmentalist” movement, really just an anti-human movement) convinced countless people to end their futures by not having kids because Earth couldn’t handle more people. The billions more people here are actually doing better than ever and there’s no accountability for these false prophets, if anything just a wake of destruction in the tragedy of people who followed them and ruined their lives for no reason. Here’s a long list of climate doomer predictions from the 1950s-1990s that did not come true if you want to see how wrong histrionic people are about the apocalypse.
All the apocalyptic climate prognostications, fearmongering, goalpost moving all seem eerily similar to what’s happening today with AI. There are perfect parallels one can draw from AI existential fears to both the "climate crisis" and Y2K, although the climate is far better because on both the goalposts will be forever moved, there is never enough we could possibly do, there will always be a priest class to comment/consult (for power, status, or fees) and of course go on the news/online and stoke fear. Y2K was a closer analog to solving the Ozone problem because it was a specific task with a final endpoint (specifics are good, we can solve those, but the population management and “nudging state” is not in the solution, it’s in the fear and control offered). And that’s the point. It actually doesn’t matter that much what risks are present, because in both cases it’s not really about that. This is just how the managerial state works, and it’s actually not that different from prior versions of “end times.” You think it’s new because we have weather data and GPUs, but it’s not. We’ve been doing this for centuries: an impending catastrophe is identified, a priesthood is appointed to interpret it and convince everyone only they can save us, while expanding their power accordingly.
Let’s draw more parallels because it’s just too easy, there’s dozens we could make. Just a few should help you see this clearly if you don’t already get it. The climate crisis has people flying to Davos each year sipping champagne and having caviar on 700-1,000 private jets to discuss what we should do. They’re of course hypocrites and won’t fly commercial, same as the celebrities and politicians who try to shame you for eating steak. At the same time, we have people working within the AI labs themselves who say there’s a chance this is world ending. No one is going to give up their private travel, the companies won’t stop work. Ironically both of them want more control while you, normal citizen, are forced to eat bugs, use paper straws, and have regulatory burden for you starting your own AI firm to be so high as to be impossible in the future, and also of course any open source AI will be deemed “too dangerous” for retail.
Then we have China, which AI development presents precisely the same situation as the so-called climate crisis. China’s leadership are engineers and will not slow down AI development because of some Hollywood-style fears. They’ll simply work through any issues as they arise. On climate they are not materially slowing carbon emissions, while places like EU and UK try to achieve net 0 and already barely contribute here. America is already past peak Co2 emissions. It’s hilarious and none of it makes any sense (the UK basically nuking their economy for no reason). Also to add to the hypocrisy here, the same people melting down about the climate are also the same ones who think the climate cares what kind of EV you get, which again shows you what this is really about. They also have succeeded in shutting down nuclear power (abundant green, carbon-free, elemental energy) forcing places like Germany to restart coal (they’re de-growthers, like Paul Ehrlich, they simply hate civilization). Oh also the data center issue is a Venn diagram of environmental misinformation, anti-tech luddites, and China laughing as they build more (they are even throwing fuel on the fire by propagandizing us against our own innovations).
The AI apocalypse scenario is also notably now being pushed by the same politicians who ushered in the DEI regime and pandemic lockdowns, so basically the ones who would gladly undermine basic freedoms and markets. These people will use anything to grab more power, as that’s always been their end goal. They also want to have a say in how the AI is trained and what the information environments look like, but we’ve seen how this works for many years, you just hope more people are aware of the game by now.
I mentioned consultants and the “priest class” of AI doom, as someone on my social media feed noted: “the academic-NGO complex specializes in the rhetoric of "get on board or we will all die because this is the big one and it is happening now, people." It also produces the books, conferences, slogans, manifestos, op-eds, fellowships and all the rest of it until the next "do our will or die" crisis comes along. Then the old problem that threatened imminent death strangely recedes.” We’ve actually seen even more recent examples of this, ie Greta pivoting from the climate to “Palestine” AKA their new ‘omnicause’.
On the climate issue the free market left to build has done the most good of all. Texas, without even having a formal climate mandate, is beating California on utility-scale green energy production (interestingly, a lot of the technology made that allows this was innovated in California). You would think we would put together that the market can solve problems and an infinitely expanding regulatory burden/NGO-industrial complex of middlemen just gets in the way of things. But these people have to take their cut and make 100 reports/approvals and analyze potential bird nesting sites before anyone builds anything (even to help us go greener). AI isn’t special here to not also let it be subjected to market forces if we want it to succeed safely, in fact there’s probably more risk if it’s just one or two companies (who ultimately will atrophy).
Again, the point here if you’re not catching on, it isn’t really about what the actual threat is. It also doesn’t even matter if the climate “crisis” or AI “apocalypse” are real or not. You will be subjected to continuous news about these things and “the end” will always be just around the corner (and if something is solved, the goalposts will simply move). It will purposefully be trying to scare you (whether actually warranted or not) for control and demoralization and so an expanding class of middlemen can take their cut. But I would say to think for yourself, ignore any macro apocalypse news (you can’t do anything about it anyway, whether real or imagined) and live your life. It’s all a trap to be anxious about and doomerism is a form of mental illness.
When you read enough about humanity, power and history you take a more realist view. It’s actually not cynical, it’s just human nature and how our civilization interprets and processes perceived crisis and advancement. The climate has always been changing. Technology has always been advancing. We solve problems, the world continues, with or without you, no matter if you’re made anxious or not (it’s a trap).
And honestly, both the Earth and AI tools are going to be fine. Go enjoy the weekend, don’t worry about the clankers (they’re our friends, actually).
Interesting piece, thank you. I think your ending gets to the crux of the matter. Earth will survive humanity. We'll be a blip on Earth's radar. That's a key problem behind the climate-crisis messaging: Too many activists made climate concerns about saving the planet, which was never at issue. With AI, though, it's not clear to me that "AI tools are going to be fine." Nor is it clear that humanity's impact on Earth and AI tools' impact on humanity is a fair comparison. Are AI safety concerns really so overblown?
well said!