Explainers

An ideological stance that conflates exaggerated existential fears about artificial intelligence causing human extinction with legitimate AI governance concerns, typically promoted by governments, corporations, and policy circles rather than technical communities. AI Doomerism advocates for "AI Alignment" research and "AI Safety" measures focused on hypothetical future catastrophic risks while neglecting present-day technical failures, economic realities, and documented limitations of AI systems such as hallucinations, lack of explainability, and failure to generalise beyond training data.​

The phenomenon creates regulatory capture by concentrating power among large corporations through restrictions that hinder open-source development and startup innovation under the guise of preventing speculative threats. It exhibits a fundamental disconnect from actual technical challenges, relying on marketed narratives rather than empirical analysis, and promotes market distortions by amplifying AGI hype around technologies with demonstrated limitations.​

Distinguished from legitimate technology law and policy discourse addressing data protection, cybersecurity, intellectual property, competition law, and labour standards, AI Doomerism bypasses democratic engagement with technical communities in favour of sweeping restrictions based on catastrophic scenarios that obstruct meaningful innovation and evidence-based regulation.