Gunkel paper: AI apocalypse talk is a displacement of capitalist anxiety
rvp · x · 2026-09-27
David Gunkel's new SSRN paper, The Last Man Complex: Artificial Intelligence and Existential Risk, draws on Mary Shelley's 1826 apocalyptic novel The Last Man to argue that the tech industry's obsession with an AI apocalypse is a psychological displacement.
- Invoking Mark Fisher's dictum that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, Gunkel contends that billionaire tech CEOs and "x-risk doomers" embrace apocalyptic sci-fi narratives to avoid confronting the dismantlement of exploitative corporate monopolies.
- The poster adds a counterpoint: reducing all apocalyptic concern to a coping mechanism risks downplaying very real, immediate software vulnerabilities and coordination failures in autonomous agent networks—hazards dangerous regardless of the narrative.
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