The time-tested solution?
Find a scapegoat, go negative and blame the other side.
asserted
solution → test → side
This year the weaponized bogeyman is artificial intelligence.
asserted
bogeyman → weaponize → ?
Many Americans are falling for the anti-AI information operation.
asserted
Americans → fall → operation
A new poll from Politico has the grisly details: 63% of Americans think AI has the potential to “destroy humanity.”
A majority of both Democrats and Republicans now think AI could herald the apocalypse.
That’s quite a sea change in less than a year: In December 2025, a poll from Navigator Research found Americans split roughly equally among those favoring data centers, opposing data centers or ambivalent.
uncertain
Americans → have → centers
It’s not hard to figure out what happened.
asserted
what → ’ → ?
Days before the new Politico poll, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stressed the same existential stakes, arguing AI industry titans “owe it to humanity to try” to slow down the Frankenstein’s monster they’ve unleashed on the masses.
asserted
they → stress → masses
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has a “sociopathic lack of concern” for humanity, according to a loose-lipped company board member.
uncertain
Altman → have → member
Elon Musk is calling for an industry slowdown, too.
asserted
Musk → call → slowdown
AI industry leaders seem to have settled on a message: Our product is going to kill your job, and it might end all of humanity, but trust us and do what we say anyway.
uncertain
we → seem → what
It’s not often that you see industry leaders fan the flames of a moral panic ignited by their own product.
asserted
leaders → ’ → product
Harvard Business School should offer a case study on how not to market and sell one’s wares, starring Amodei and Altman.
asserted
School → offer → Amodei
Unsurprisingly, given the polling, prominent figures across the political spectrum have found common cause on AI regulation.
asserted
figures → give → regulation
This week, Soviet Union-honeymooning communist Bernie Sanders and MAGA maestro Steve Bannon spoke at the same anti-AI confab in Washington, DC.
asserted
Sanders → honeymoon → Washington
That’s why Barack Obama wants Democrats to emphasize AI regulation on the campaign trail.
asserted
Democrats → ’ → trail
Data centers could cost Republican John Husted his reelection to the Senate in Ohio.
uncertain
centers → cost → Ohio
And they could harm Democrat Cait Conley in her run against Mike Lawler in New York’s swingy 17th Congressional District.
uncertain
they → harm → District
But here’s the thing: Many moral panics aren’t based in reality.
asserted
panics → ’ → reality
The Salem witch trials weren’t based in sound reason — nor, in more recent memory, were the lockdowns, school closures and mask mandates of COVID-19.
asserted
lockdowns → base → COVID-19
For that matter, what is the current AI doomsaying if not a form of digital COVID?
asserted
doomsaying → doomsaye → COVID
The way out of a baseless moral panic is not to pander to the mob.
asserted
way → pander → mob
It is to demonstrate leadership.
asserted
It → demonstrate → leadership
That’s why we remember Abraham Lincoln and his appeals to natural rights — and not Stephen Douglas, who pleaded for might-makes-right “popular sovereignty.”
uncertain
might → ’ → sovereignty
Trump is making a similar case today.
asserted
Trump → make → case
This week, he dismissed the AI moral panic as a “hoax.”
asserted
he → dismiss → hoax
That’s leadership.
asserted
That → ’ → ?
As the 18th-century conservative British statesman Edmund Burke once said, “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
asserted
he → say → opinion
Majority sentiment certainly matters, and a dose of populism isn’t just healthy — it’s vital.
asserted
it → matter → populism
A society where the elites are wildly out of touch with the commoners is not a society built to last.
asserted
elites → build → commoners
After all, eugenics, forced sterilizations and anti-miscegenation laws were all once broadly popular.
asserted
eugenics → force → ?
None of this is to say there aren’t valid concerns with AI.
asserted
None → say → AI
AI models should not tell a troubled teen girl how to harm herself; the algorithms must not help a man rob the local bank.
But the data-center backlash is silly and misplaced.
asserted
backlash → tell → bank
Taken to its logical conclusion, shutting down all data centers would end the internet itself.
asserted
shutting → take → internet
Prudence is a long-forgotten word in the Western political lexicon.
asserted
Prudence → forget → lexicon
Aristotle referred to it as the queen of the virtues and the essence of statesmanship; Lincoln exhibited it in spades.
asserted
Lincoln → refer → spades
It’s what we desperately need, amidst our crippling AI civil war.
asserted
we → ’ → war
And a full, industry-wide innovation shutdown would be nothing short of suicidal.
In the short term, the AI doomsayers are likely to prevail.
asserted
doomsayers → prevail → term
Trump’s robustly pro-AI stance won’t help Republicans this November.
asserted
stance → help → Republicans
But history books aren’t written on the outcome of a single election.
asserted
books → write → election
We forget that at our own peril.
asserted
We → forget → peril
The Aporia
