Artificial Intelligence

AI Doom Is Misguided, Not a Psyop

The pro-AI side must avoid succumbing to paranoia and bad faith.

Robby Soave | 9.11.2026 10:01 AM

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AI doom (Photo: Geopappas/Agg/Dreamstime/Wiki Commons. Illustration: Fatima Ruiz/Midjourney)

Did you see the news? Everybody is freaking out about artificial intelligence, which poses a significant likelihood of killing everyone on the planet once it achieves superintelligence…at least according to a bunch of tech folks who might have their own reasons for stoking mass panic.

This media frenzy has led to blowback from a bunch of people, including Elon Musk, who say AI doomers are engaged in a "psyop"—in other words, they are using inauthentic means to manufacture a nonexistent controversy over AI. Proponents of the psyop theory point to a high degree of coordination among the doomers, though they are glossing over some less conspiratorial explanations for why politicians and reporters are boosting their claims.

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Ex-Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon triggered this meltdown earlier this week when he announced he was leaving the company due to his own concerns that Anthropic and OpenAI—where he previously worked—were racing toward superintelligence without sufficient concern for how an advanced AI could threaten humanity. His thoughts on X went super viral and were widely disseminated by other tech people, politicians, and commentators.

I resigned from Anthropic today. I........

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