The Social Media Panicmongers Have Pivoted to AI

APOCALYPSE, AGAIN

The science populists who stoked a Reefer Madness-like hysteria about social media are onto their next target—and predictably predicting the imminent end of the world.

Published Sep. 19 2023 1:05AM EDT

Numerous scared faces in black and red gawk at a cell phone glowing with an AI software blinking — Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

Artificial intelligence (AI) has in 2023 quickly eclipsed social media and smartphones as the technology du jour for secular doomsday preachers.

Concerns about content-ranking algorithms and “dark patterns” suddenly felt quaint compared to sentient AI exterminating (or displacing) every human on the planet.

Louis Anslow

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The Social Media Panicmongers Have Pivoted to AI

The science populists who stoked a Reefer Madness-like hysteria about social media are onto their next target—and predictably predicting the imminent end of the world.

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Louis Anslow