Member-only story
Staying Human in an Algorithmic World
The Real Threat of AI Isn’t Replacement — It’s Our Own Surrender
Remember the day you saw an AI-generated painting and realised it looked better than your art school portfolio?
Or maybe it was a haiku about grief that made you pause, until you scrolled down and saw “Written by ChatGPT.”
Whatever it was, the unease wasn’t about machines gaining intelligence. It was about us losing relevance.
And that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.
Because let’s be honest; most of us don’t actually fear artificial intelligence. We fear not being needed. We fear being optimised out of the equation.
So no, this isn’t about AI taking over. It’s about capitalism finding a shinier, cheaper intern.
We didn’t build machines to help us. We built them to replace us. Then we’re surprised they’re doing it well.
It’s not the machine we’re scared of
Look at any AI debate online and you’ll see words like ethics, creativity, job loss, deepfakes, and of course, Skynet. But if you peel back the layers, most of the panic isn’t about AI.
The real dread? It’s that AI is just good enough to replace what capitalism…