“The most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI, under anything remotely like the current circumstances, is that literally everyone on Earth will die.” – Eliezer Yudkowsky, Time Magazine, March 29, 2023
No, the above quote isn’t pulled from an Orwell science fiction novel or stated by the supercomputer AM in Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.” It’s a genuine warning and insight from one of the earliest and most significant Artificial intelligence researchers. More importantly, however, is that it captures a broader trend amongst the general populace. It has become commonplace for people to believe that the future is not uncertain, but rather that the future is inevitable and doomed. As if humanity is slowly drifting towards the edge of a waterfall, drop by drop, on a small canoe, helpless to save ourselves. Despite this common belief, I posit the opposite stance: the future is brighter than ever, and being optimistic presents the highest upside, both financially and eudaimonically.
Optimism isn’t naivety. It’s a strategic, historically sound, and necessary response to techno-nihilism
This is not the first time that the human race has faced a transformative technology with great fear about the second-order consequences of its potential. From the printing press to the steam engine and from the telephone to the internet, every technological breakthrough has been met with mass panic, narratives of societal collapse, and fears of mainstream addiction. Despite all this, the fact that you are reading this now proves that such pessimism is almost always wrong, and those who bet smartly on optimistic progress become the ones who shape it. To understand this natural fear response not as a prophecy, but as a pattern of human nature, one only needs to look to the past.
We’ve Been Here Before: The Historical Precedent of Human Nature
Artificial Intelligence and AGI are unprecedented, yes, but the mass human panic is not. To understand techno-nihilism as a cultural reflex rather than a sign of greater awareness, one must keep in mind one concept I propose:
“History doesn’t repeat; Human Nature does.”
To prove this, let’s rewind quickly to the 15th century. A
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