This year, the idea that the future is almost entirely hopeless has quietly become part of our shared mindset. Last week, I was having coffee with an old friend. He was telling me what his kids wanted to study at university when he suddenly stopped, stared into the distance, and said, “I wish I’d never had children.” He’d been a father for 20 years, and I’d never heard him say that. “Oh my god, why?” He loves his kids more than anything, but in that moment, he looked utterly desolate. “AI,” he replied. “What about it?” It could have been anything related to AI at this point. Was it that AI would take all the jobs his kids might have done, leaving their lives poor and without purpose or meaning? Or was it environmental, with all the water and energy AI uses putting more stress on the climate and making the planet unlivable? Or was it that week’s news that AI could “kill all humans” within the next 10 years? It was the last one. We talked half-heartedly about the “killing all humans” idea for a bit, then moved on. But the shadow had settled, and I started to wonder: is the polycrisis we face so overwhelming that we no longer even have the energy to talk about it with urgency? Instead, it’s just there, in the air, all around us, like pollution, each particle carrying its own doomsday scenario—and the only way to live in this atmosphere is to be numb to it. ‘Too little, too late’: critics perplexed and suspicious of AI leaders’ call for a slowdownRead moreCurrently, for so many people, all our past and future decisions are being filtered through this strange and dark moment. If you’re middle-aged, it looks like my friend, wishing (for a moment) you’d never brought kids into the world. Or it might be wondering if it’s worth continuing to work, if you won’t be able to enjoy a normal retirement. If you’re young, it looks like being unable to choose a university degree or career because you don’t know what professions or trades will be obsolete in a few years. Or wondering if it’s worth sacrificing and saving for a huge house deposit, if you won’t have a proper job or future to pay off a 30-year mortgage. And if you’re older, it’s being grateful that you won’t be around to see it all fall apart. There are several answers, or ways out of this nihilism we now face—and none of them will come from tech. The first is to wake up. Usually, if someone was actually trying to kill you—if they broke into your house and tried to murder you—you would fight back. Yet we greet the news that AI could cause human extinction with a blank indifference. It’s worth remembering that no one actually asked for AI, and yet here it suddenly is trying to kill us. And even if that’s avoided, it’s embedding itself in our workplaces and in our emotional lives (ChatGPT may be the largest provider of mental health services in the US), robbing us of the ability to think critically, and threatening economic and social stability. Why are we so numb in the face of what is—currently—a preventable threat? This numbness could be the result of almost 20 years of smartphones and social media where, addicted to entertainment, our attention spans have shortened, and through our individualized algorithms, our capacity for organization and collective action has diminished. Or it could be the huge political power tech companies have that means all of us—including governments—feel powerless. It could be that the tide of this thing—this progress, the Last Invention—feels inevitable, and like the Luddites storming the factories, any resistance is ultimately useless. The next solution, after we wake up, is to return to first principles. What are the ingredients for human flourishing? Once we can articulate that, it’s like a rope that can guide us back to where we should be. Human flourishing is not having a machine to do your critical thinking for you—rather, it’s to engage in tThe pleasure and pain of figuring things out for yourself. Flourishing means human relationships where we care for and nurture one another. It’s not spending 18 hours a day talking to an LLM about our personal problems. Flourishing means having a direct relationship with the natural world—not experiencing the world through a screen, or watching nature itself be destroyed and degraded to make room for more screen-based existence. These are all things worth fighting for. There is a place for technology in our world, but when we start hearing that it could destroy our world, we should wake up, shake off that numb feeling, and start fighting back.
Brigid Delaney is the author of five books, including The Seeker and the Sage.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs We hear that AI could wipe us out and we just shrug How do we escape this nihilism Brigid Delaney
1 What is this article actually about
Its about why we seem emotionally numb to warnings that AI could cause human extinction and how we can shake off that numbness and care again
2 What does nihilism mean here
A feeling that nothing matters and nothing we do makes a difference so why bother worrying about AI or anything else
3 Why do we shrug instead of panicking
Because the threat feels abstract far away and too big to fix Our brains arent built to stay afraid of vague distant dangers So we shut down instead
4 Is it bad to feel numb about this
Numbness isnt a moral failure its a normal coping mechanism The problem is when it stops us from acting or engaging at all
5 What kinds of AI risks are people talking about
Two main types existential risks and everyday harms
6 Are the AI will wipe us out warnings realistic
Experts genuinely disagree Some serious researchers think its a real risk others think its overblown Its not science fiction but its also not certain which is exactly why it deserves attention
7 Why does the scale of the problem make us care less
Psychologists call it psychic numbing the bigger the catastrophe the harder it is to feel anything about it One death moves us a million can leave us cold
8 How do I stop feeling helpless about AI
Focus on whats within your control learn about it talk about it vote support good regulation and make mindful choices about the tech you use Action is the antidote to despair
9 Whats one practical first step
Pick one thing read one good article have one honest conversation or follow one credible expert Small concrete steps beat vague dread
10 Should I just log off and ignore it all
Ignoring it feels better shortterm but tends to make the anxiety worse Engaged bounded attention not endless doomscrolling is healthier
