Published on November 22, 2025 2:59 PM GMT

I’ve heard of this AI doom thingy. We’re all going to die or something. It’s going to happen soon, maybe in two to ten years. I find myself mostly unfazed by this. Is it because all previous claims of the end of the world have been fake? Or am I just depressed enough that death would come as a relief? Possibly it’s just that nobody else seems to be panicking, so it’s not like I’m going to start. That would mean other people would be questioning my sanity, and I do that enough myself. Maybe I could just not explain why I’m suddenly doing different things? In any case, I don’t feel like that at all. There’s no internal panic either. The sun will rise tomorrow just like it did yesterday.

Nothing's certain, that's for sure. There's some probability that I should assign to these problems, and some reaction proportional to that. I have no idea how to get suitable probabilities, but maybe even that doesn't matter. If the probability is even 1%, it already ought to change something, and my understanding is that expert opinions are substantially higher. That shouldn't stop me from answering what I would do if the probability was 50%? Or at which point should I do something differently.

Naturally it would be better if we could avoid the unfortunate situation of literally everyone dying. I don't think I can do much about that myself. I'm not sure if anyone can do anything about this, it's the Moloch that's driving the process. There are many ways one could contribute, in theory: time, money and credibility can be sunk without limit.

The most obvious idea would of course be donating some money to people who want to fix this, as that's how things get done. It doesn't feel like a smart idea. I might end up regretting it. Even if it ended up making a difference, which it will not, I would still feel betrayed that this was required. This shouldn't bother me, perhaps, but it does.

Many of my friends do try to do something about this themselves, one way or another. Maybe I could too? I'm decently skilled in programming and cybersecurity, and could possibly learn some of the related maths too. I predict that it would make me miserable, and that in turn would make me useless. Making a difference here, either, is extremely unlikely.

It's quite clear to me that I'm so unhappy that solving any other problems isn't viable. I've been mostly thinking of this as a resource management problem. How do I maximize happiness given the remaining time and money? How do I balance the different outcomes? Should I quit my unfulfilling job, ignore the conventional career advice, and waste the days on videogames instead? Disregard healthy habits in favor of immediate hedonism? How to even think about having kids or not? The very meaning of life has been about long-term choices, and not letting that be meaningful anymore isn't possible.