Some beliefs about generative AI are strikingly apocalyptic. The talk of eternal damnation (like human extinction, and permanent underclass) and eternal salvation (like curing all diseases, and never having to work again). Talk of a judgement day (the technological singularity) within this lifetime that precedes the eternal damnation or salvation. Prophets who claim to hold the key to eternal salvation (shareholders and employees of frontier generative AI companies). And miracles that the prophets ascribe to generative AI (hacking, solving open mathematical problems) to convince society that they really do hold the key to eternal salvation.

I'm skeptical of this new version of apocalypticism. Generative AI is ultimately artificial and like any other artificial thing, it is ultimately grounded in the natural world and the human action that has gone into transforming the natural world into the artificial things that enable it to function (like transforming quartz ore into computer chips, and transforming bauxite into power distribution cables), and into attending to those artificial things such that they are not reclaimed by nature. And as such, it is ultimately subject to the outer loop.