A new brand of apocalyptic theories has dropped. The “AI will kill us all” narrative is curiously similar to the “global warming will kill everybody in 12 years.”

I remember back in the early 1990s there was a widespread obsession that machine translation would deprive translators of work. Last year, I ordered a textbook for my translation course with the publication date of 2021. Half of the textbook consisted of the same old horror stories about the imminent demise of translator work because of technology. And the funny thing is that the technology hasn’t changed much in these 30 years. What I was already doing in 1992 – because I had early access to technology – now everybody is doing. And making money.

But who cares about reality when it’s so much fun to titillate oneself with scary stories?

P.S. Now it looks like AI is going to kill democracy before proceeding to kill all of us:

God, what a yawn.

Judging by the extremely earnest and dramatically self-righteous reaction to this post both on the left and the right, half of the country has lost its sense of humor:

Because of you, humorless, preachy bores, he’ll win again. The hand-wringing you engage in because of a goofy joke is getting on people’s nerves. Lighten up, you absolute babies, and stop your outrage act.