Daniel Lemire: failure of imagination — people want to stop AI, not explore it
lemire · x · 2026-09-22
Computer scientist Daniel Lemire reflects on the "failure of imagination": he bought SpaceX stock at IPO as a symbol, yet when 2000 arrived we had no Moon base — everyone was busy with a Y2K bug.
His key points:
- Most people aren't future-oriented; they manage what they have or look backward
- Faced with an AI breakthrough, people try to stop it rather than imagine what we could do
- The prevailing vision of AI is just "what we have now, with fewer jobs"
- That's why we don't have a lunar base
Conclusion: put future-oriented people back in charge — and bring cool toys back.
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