Yesterday I came across a new reason(as if I needed more!) not to make long term plans. It’s “Model Autophagy Disorder” – basically, the AI slop vacuum cleaners/generators might start to feed on what they’ve already spat out.
As I put on Bluesky –
“I’m old enough to remember when “MAD” meant Yanks and Russians pointing nukes at each other in “Mutually Assured Destruction.” I’ve lived long enough for it to (also) mean “Model Autophagy Disorder”. Truly it is a mad mad mad mad world.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_c…
This morning it occurred to me that the counter argument from the tech bros would run along these lines.
“Oh you poor deluded Luddite. This is your fear-based response to every new technology. GM crops were going to give us Triffids – never did. You bleated about nanotechnology causing the “gray goo” problem, or some Skynet programmed to make paperclips turning the whole universe into paper clips. You never met a technology that you couldn’t turn into a boogie man. Scared of your own shadow, resentful of people smarter and more successful than you, you nonetheless accept vaccines, fluoridated water, trains, planes etc. And ALL of those technologies met with resistance from pant-wetters just like you. We’re about to basically cure most cancers with mRNA tech, and it wouldn’t have happened if we listened to every crackpot with a socials account and too much amygdala to be going on with.”
Not quite sure how I’d respond? Pointing to a Keeling Curve, and to that diagram about the various thresholds we’ve crossed seems necessary but not sufficient…
UPDATE 25/10/2026 – I asked a smart friend for his response and he pointed me towards Nick Bostrom (yes, that guy) and his “Vulnerable World Hypothesis” – Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue 4 . November 2019
Hi Marc. I think it’s incorrect to be giving them arguments to learn from. Until they renounce fascism and capitalism no-one should risk helping them deploy more tech solutionism. But they obviously think they are going to use AI plus synthetic biology to permanently worm their way out of this. The continued existence of imperialism, on its own, tells us that this won’t work.