AI's promise was to solve problems, not only of the day but all future obstacles as well. Yet the hype has started to wear off. Amidst the growing disillusionment, Nolen Gertz challenges the prevailing optimism, suggesting that our reliance on AI might be less about solving problems and more about escaping the harsh realities of our time. He questions whether AI is truly our saviour or just a captivating distraction, fuelling capitalist gains and nihilistic diversions from the global crises we face.

I recently participated in a HTLGI debate where one of the participants, Kenneth Cukier, who is an editor of The Economist, criticized my view of technology as being unnecessarily pessimistic. He confidently claimed that we should be more optimistic about technological progress because such progress, for example, would help us to solve the climate change crisis. Though Cukier admitted that he might not just be optimistic but even “Panglossian” when it comes to technological progress, he nevertheless argued, “I think if you think of all the global challenges that we’re facing, in large part because of the technologies that we’ve created, Industrial Revolution most importantly, gunpowder as well, it’s going to be technology that is going to help us overcome it.”