The Education of a Doomer: an engineer explains why he turned pessimistic about AI
zetalyrae · x · 2026-09-09
Engineer Fernando Borretti published a long essay, "The Education of a Doomer", walking through each belief about AI he once held and why it collapsed. On economics, he used to reason inductively that past automation made society richer, not jobless, so AGI would still leave humans something to do. But if AI becomes truly general, smarter, faster and cheaper than people, he now suspects there may be nothing left except UBI. He isn't worried about meaning without work, but the essay goes on to cover alignment, control, writing, software engineering and more as he documents his shift from optimist to doomer.
Related event: Engineer's Essay Explains Journey From AI Optimist to Doomer(3 posts)→
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