'Obsolete' author argues for pausing AGI development to regulate AI and fund a new New Deal
GarrisonLovely · x · 2026-10-17
Garrison Lovely promotes his new book Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace Us—and How to Stop It (OR Books), responding to anxieties about either an ASI Singularity or a 'Slop Singularity.'
His proposal: pause AGI development ASAP, redirect AI capacity toward regulating existing systems, and spend the rest building a new New Deal. The book has drawn praise from Publishers Weekly, Vox and Jacobin — 'the best book I've read on AI... Sam Altman would hate it' — and argues for moving past doomer/optimist/Luddite tribalism to address frontier AI risks and entrenched inequality.
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