The Forethought of Grief

Everybody seems to be scared of artificial intelligence. Or maybe the press makes it seem like everybody is scared of artificial intelligence.

AI is going to take our jobs. AI is going to replace artists. AI is going to manipulate elections. AI is going to become smarter than us. Eventually AI is going to destroy civilization.

Why are we always doing this?

Why do human beings always think civilization is about to end?

In my lifetime, first it was nuclear war. We are all going to die. Then the millennium change. Everything is going to stop working. Computers are going to fail. Civilization is going to fall apart. Then climate change. Now AI is going to destroy us all.

Before that, people thought Halley’s Comet was going to poison everybody.

In 1910, scientists detected cyanogen gas in the comet’s tail. Earth was going to pass through it. People bought gas masks and supposed remedies. Newspapers ran with it. There was real dread that this thing in the sky might kill everybody.

Then Earth passed through the tail.

And nothing happened.

That does not mean every warning is stupid. Nuclear war was a real danger. It still is. Y2K was a real computer problem. People spent years fixing it. Climate change is real. AI is going to create real problems.

But we have this habit of moving really quickly from, this could be bad, to, this could end civilization.

And I keep coming back to the same thing.