Wednesday, September 23, 2026
The Slow Path to the End of the World
The debate over A.I. right now mostly involves the starkest existential threat: That A.I. will find a way to kill us all in some kind of Terminator-type dystopia.
That is a threat, of course. But the fact that this is the concern about A.I. right now masks the threat that technology poses to us in ways other than exterminating us with germs, guns or bombs.
Right now, this moment, A.I. is disrupting the pattern of teaching and learning that sustains a civilization, is warping out politics by systemic social-control misinformation, and undermining our ability to even tell our own stories.
Having computers do our thinking for us will lead our minds and moralities to atrophy. The road to extinction by A.I. may not be in a flash of light, but a billion instances of losing the light in the eyes of our fellow humans.
