We greet the news that AI could extinguish us with a glazed indifference. What is the way out of this nihilism?...

The Guardian has published a new opinion essay by Brigid Delaney warning that public indifference to AI’s existential risks has hardened into a kind of nihilism. The piece, published on 14 September 2026, begins with a friend confessing he wished he had never had children because of AI. Delaney asks why catastrophic warnings now produce glazed numbness rather than urgent action, and argues that technology alone cannot supply the answer.

Delaney’s column arrives amid a widening AI safety debate. In recent years, researchers, executives and policymakers have warned that advanced systems could disrupt jobs, concentrate power, strain energy grids and, in extreme scenarios, threaten human survival. Yet these warnings often circulate as ambient dread—constant, diffuse and psychologically exhausting. The essay places that dread in the wider context of a polycrisis: climate breakdown, economic insecurity and political instability all competing for attention.

The catalyst was the friend’s admission after 20 years of fatherhood. He did not specify one AI threat; Delaney lists several: mass job displacement, the water and energy consumed by data centers, climate stress, and a headline claiming AI could “kill all humans” within a decade. The conversation trailed off, she writes, because the shadow had already fallen. The essay’s central image is pollution: each particle carrying its own doomsday scenario.

Technically, the concerns are not imaginary. Large AI models require enormous computing power, specialized chips, vast data centers and millions of gallons of water for cooling. Training runs can consume electricity comparable to small towns, and the race for artificial general intelligence pushes companies to scale faster. Some laboratories now openly discuss existential risk, while critics note that the same firms profit from the technology they warn about.

The short-term impact is already visible in personal decisions. Delaney’s friend is not an isolated case: people are questioning whether to have children, pursue careers or plan for retirement in a world they believe may be cut short. Longer term, such fatalism can paralyze climate action, democratic reform and AI governance. If citizens feel powerless, they may cede decisions to tech companies and governments that promise safety without accountability.

Reactions to the essay reflect broader frustration. Some readers praised Delaney for naming a mood they could not articulate. Others argued that doom is a luxury for those not already facing AI-driven layoffs or climate disasters. The column also nods to recent tensions: AI leaders have called for a slowdown, but critics called those appeals “too little, too late,” suspicious of executives seeking regulatory cover while continuing to build.

Delaney’s way out is not a technical fix. She calls for identifying the ingredients of human flourishing—direct relationship with the natural world, community, meaning and agency—rather than screen-mediated existence. Practical responses include stronger AI regulation, transparency about environmental costs, public deliberation and support for mental health in a permanently alarming news cycle. The essay ends less with a solution than with a demand: refuse numbness, and rebuild the capacity to care.

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