Humans are probably correct to feel a bit flat about our prospects. We inhabit a world roughly comparable to that of a schoolchild in the 1960s when we fully expected the Cuban missile crisis to erupt in a global fireball. The school principal told us not to worry, that we’d be dead before we knew it. We could never say we weren’t warned.

We can say the same about AI giant Anthropic. In its $2 trillion public flotation prospectus, its own risk section runs to about 90 pages. That’s before it warns that advanced AI could pose ”catastrophic or existential risks to humanity”.

The latest tech industry news is that the world’s biggest chip company is being shredded by a distinctly old-fashioned alleged sex ‘n’ spies honeytrap.

No wonder some people are turning to religion. There is plenty of precedent for faith resurgences at times when people are clutching for common humanity. Tech stocks are struggling, but the pope’s stock was never higher. News of his cancer surgery inspired Eric Idle of the famously blasphemous old Monty Python team to write, “Even atheists are praying for you. You are a good man. Please get well.”

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Meanwhile, Trump’s vast army of Christian nationalists........

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