The AI doom market sells psychological certainty, not probability
YogeshMalik · x · 2026-11-16
Applying Rory Sutherland's "psychology of waiting" to the AI doom discourse, Yogesh Malik argues the doom market sells something more valuable than probability estimates: psychological certainty.
A quantified p(doom) gives existential anxiety a number to hold onto, and waiting becomes an experience with an apparent endpoint. Uncertainty is exhausting — even bad news can feel like emotional closure. The accompanying four-panel comic nails it: a man overwhelmed by open futures (superintelligence, techno-utopia, dystopia...) relaxes the moment someone declares "Everything collapses in 2030" — "Finally. A date I can worry about. Certainty — even the bad kind."
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