April 20, 2026
Doomers vs boomers vs “shitternet”
A Pascal's Wager for AI Doomers
He says AI isn’t smart — the comments say “human ego”
TLDR: Doctorow says the real danger isn’t future killer robots but today’s corporate surveillance, while Bengio pushes a public‑good AI plan. The comments explode over whether AI already counts as “intelligent,” if hype is steering CEOs, and whether AI search rules or we’re all stuck in a “shitternet.”
Cory Doctorow just walked into the AI doomers’ church and kicked the pulpit: in his new post “A Pascal’s Wager for AI Doomers”, he argues today’s threat isn’t sci‑fi robot overlords — it’s right now tech controlled by corporations and states spying on workers. He even sparred onstage with AI legend Yoshua Bengio, who’s backing a public‑interest project to make AI open and safe. Cory’s take: stop panicking about future superminds and start fighting the surveillance economy. The crowd? Oh, they had thoughts.
Comments lit up like a data center on fire. One camp roasted Cory’s “AI isn’t intelligent” line as human exceptionalism cosplay, with woeirua saying it’s getting hard to deny machines show intelligence. Another faction dragged him for downplaying progress: simianwords insists AI‑powered search is a giant leap, not a dead end, calling Cory out for “not having a good mental model.” Meanwhile, chneu dropped a spicy middle-ground: AI may not be sentient, but the hype has already captured CEOs, steering real‑world decisions in weird ways. Comic relief came from phyzix5761’s 2038 skit: an AI spends 12 years deciding the best way to save humanity is… do nothing. And yes, everyone’s new favorite swear‑word is “shitternet” — with folks vowing to rescue their data from the sludge and back it up at home. Drama, memes, and a very online identity crisis ensued.
Key Points
- •Cory Doctorow asserts that current AI is not intelligent and that statistical methods will not produce intelligence.
- •He argues attention should focus on present-day harms from corporate-controlled technology, not hypothetical future AI superintelligence.
- •Doctorow spoke on a Montreal panel with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio, moderated by CBC Ideas host Nahlah Ayed.
- •Yoshua Bengio is leading “Lawzero,” seeking an international consortium to build AI as an open, auditable, transparent, and safe digital public good.
- •Bengio’s rationale is that AI will become much more powerful and, without public-spirited systems, could enable manipulation, surveillance, and civilizational risk; Doctorow disagrees with this emphasis.