This op-ed explores power and narrative dynamics around AI. Drawing on pop-culture references, the professional experiences of the author and examples from 2023’s “Great AI Safety Hype Roadshow,” this piece draws on the literary criticism technique of practical criticism to consider how speeches and announcements from both Silicon Valley executives and research scientists to interrogate the media-friendly nature of p(doom) discourse—which focuses on the existential risks of AI (PauseAI, 2023)—and its likely consequences. The complexities of AI and its numerous social impacts can be difficult for even the most expert analyst to unpack. In spite of this, the potential of “existential threats” has successfully cut through to become a mainstay of mainstream media coverage over the last year. This piece will make the case that this is an effective narrative conceit that has achieved a number of ends that traditional science communication tends to find difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Firstly, it is easy to understand. Simplification of this nature—that removes jargon and complexity and focuses on a single outcome—is much easier to fit on a TV rolling news ticker or on the cover of a tabloid newspaper than more well-balanced, representative opinions. Secondly, it inherits prior assumptions from well-known dramatic forms. P(doom) plays to stories familiar from Greek tragedy through to Marvel movies, in which lone male heroes battle ineluctable forces. Thirdly, it is imbued with urgency and so becomes difficult to ignore.
AI Safety Is a Narrative Problem · Special Issue 5: Grappling With the Generative AI Revolution
This op-ed explores power and narrative dynamics around AI. Drawing on pop-culture references, the professional experiences of the author and examples from 2023’s “Great AI Safety Hype Roadshow,” this piece draws on the literary criticism technique of practical criticism to consider how speeches and announcements from both Silicon Valley executives and research scientists to interrogate the media-friendly nature of p(doom) discourse—which focuses on the existential risks of AI (PauseAI, 2023)—and its likely consequences. The complexities of AI and its numerous social impacts can be difficult for even the most expert analyst to unpack. In spite of this, the potential of “existential threats” has successfully cut through to become a mainstay of mainstream media coverage over the last year. This piece will make the case that this is an effective narrative conceit that has achieved a number of ends that traditional science communication tends to find difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Firstly, it is easy to understand. Simplification of this nature—that removes jargon and complexity and focuses on a single outcome—is much easier to fit on a TV rolling news ticker or on the cover of a tabloid newspaper than more well-balanced, representative opinions. Secondly, it inherits prior assumptions from well-known dramatic forms. P(doom) plays to stories familiar from Greek tragedy through to Marvel movies, in which lone male heroes battle ineluctable forces. Thirdly, it is imbued with urgency and so becomes difficult to ignore.
Your Favorite Science YouTubers Are Wrong About AI, (e.g. SciShow, Kurzgesagt, and Kyle Hill )
A new writing series: Re-envisioning AI safety through global majority perspectives | Brookings
Chinasa T. Okolo previews a new writing series that will re-envision AI safety through global majority perspectives.
The AI safety vibe shift
Once a fringe obsession of Bay Area rationalists, existential risk is suddenly all anyone is talking about
Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares — Common Notions Press
Industry insiders Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer dive into the dark, twisted world of AI to demystify the many nightmares we have about it. They combine expertise in cognitive science and machine learning with political and economic analyses to cut through the hype and technobabble to show how fear
Misleading Metaphors, Real Risks
What To Fear from AI Agents and How to Reclaim Our Human Agency
Safety Co-Option and Compromised National Security: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Weakened AI Risk Thresholds
Risk thresholds provide a measure of the level of risk exposure that a society or individual is willing to withstand, ultimately shaping how we determine the safety of technological systems. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, the first risk analyses, such as those devised for nuclear systems, cemented societally accepted risk thresholds against which safety-critical and defense systems are now evaluated. But today, the appropriate risk tolerances for AI systems have yet to be agreed on by global governing efforts, despite the need for democratic deliberation regarding the acceptable levels of harm to human life. Absent such AI risk thresholds, AI technologists-primarily industry labs, as well as "AI safety" focused organizations-have instead advocated for risk tolerances skewed by a purported AI arms race and speculative "existential" risks, taking over the arbitration of risk determinations with life-or-death consequences, subverting democratic processes. In this paper, we demonstrate how such approaches have allowed AI technologists to engage in "safety revisionism," substituting traditional safety methods and terminology with ill-defined alternatives that vie for the accelerated adoption of military AI uses at the cost of lowered safety and security thresholds. We explore how the current trajectory for AI risk determination and evaluation for foundation model use within national security is poised for a race to the bottom, to the detriment of the US's national security interests. Safety-critical and defense systems must comply with assurance frameworks that are aligned with established risk thresholds, and foundation models are no exception. As such, development of evaluation frameworks for AI-based military systems must preserve the safety and security of US critical and defense infrastructure, and remain in alignment with international humanitarian law.
Effective Altruism Is Pushing a Dangerous Brand of ‘AI Safety’
This philosophy—supported by tech figures like Sam Bankman-Fried—fuels the AI research agenda, creating a harmful system in the name of saving humanity
For years, they warned AI could kill all humans. Now people are listening.
A doomsaying community once on the periphery of the tech industry has gained influence, as AI “agents” perform amazing and alarming feats.
An AI Upheaval Is Coming for Media. This Journalist Is Already All In.
AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the second half of 2025. Most are written by Nick Lichtenberg.
How a single tweet transformed the AI safety debate
Most people think AI is risky, but they don’t agree what to do next.
AI Doomsday Bullshit Is Getting Tired
The "rogue AI" narrative continues to help obscure very ugly and avoidable human failures.
Stewarding the stories that power tries to silence
"2026 will mark the rise of algorithmic witnessing — a movement that uses AI not to replace journalists, but to extend the reach of the communities they serve."
On the Death of Amazon’s Writing Culture
How AI has turned what was once a superpower into a liability.
I‘m far from an AI doomer, but it is amazing how many serious voices — on LinkedIn, no less! — are sharing stories about how AI slop is quickly becoming one of the top problems they see in academic writing and research “AI will 10x our research!” doesn’t seem to be surviving encounters with reality
I‘m far from an AI doomer, but it is amazing how many serious voices — on LinkedIn, no less! — are sharing stories about how AI slop is quickly becoming one of the top problems they see in academic writing and research “AI will 10x our research!” doesn’t seem to be surviving encounters with reality
