Why Do Doom and Utopia Narratives Dominate AI Storytelling?

Have you been having fun with the newest slate of AI tools? Have you been doing research with GPT-5? Coding your projects with Claude? Turning pictures of your friends into cartoon characters from the Fairly Odd Parents using the image editing tool Nano Banana? Are you impressed with what they can do? Well guess what? You’re only impressed with them because you’re basically a naive child. You’re like a little child with an etch a sketch who is amazed that they can make crude images by turning the knobs, oblivious to greater possibilities. At least, that’s the impression you get when listening to tech leaders, philosophers, and even governments. According to them, soon the most impressive of AI tools will look as cheap and primitive as Netflix’s recommendation algorithm in 2007. Soon the world will have to reckon with the power of Artificial General Intelligence, or “AGI.” What is AGI? Definitions vary. When will it come? Perhaps months. Perhaps years. Perhaps decades. But definitely soon enough for you to worry about. What will it mean for humanity once it's here? Perhaps a techno utopia. Perhaps extinction. No one is sure. But what they are sure of is that AGI is definitely coming and it’s definitely going to be a big deal. A mystical event. A turning point in history, after which nothing will ever be the same. However, some are more skeptical, like our guest today Will Douglas Heaven. Will has a PhD in Computer Science from Imperial College London and is the senior editor for AI at MIT Technology review. He recently published an article, based on his conversations with AI researchers, which provocatively calls AGI “the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time.” Jake and Travis chat with Will about the conspiracy theory-like talk from the AI industry, whether AGI is just “vibes and snake oil,” and how to distinguish between tech breakthroughs and Silicon Valley hyperbole. Will Douglas Heaven https://bsky.app/profile/willdouglasheaven.bsky.social How AGI became the consequential conspiracy theory of our time https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1127057/agi-conspiracy-theory-artifcial-general-intelligence/ Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/qaa Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com) https://qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast. The first three episodes of Annie Kelly’s new 6-part podcast miniseries “Truly Tradly Deeply” are available to Cursed Media subscribers, with new episodes released weekly. www.cursedmedia.net/ Cursed Media subscribers also get access to every episode of every QAA miniseries we produced, including Manclan by Julian Feeld and Annie Kelly, Trickle Down by Travis View, The Spectral Voyager by Jake Rockatansky and Brad Abrahams, and Perverts by Julian Feeld and Liv Agar. Plus, Cursed Media subscribers will get access to at least three new exclusive podcast miniseries every year. www.cursedmedia.net/ REFERENCES Debates on the nature of artificial general intelligence https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado7069?utm_source=chatgpt.com Why AI Is Harder Than We Think https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.12871 AI Capabilities May Be Overhyped on Bogus Benchmarks, Study Finds https://gizmodo.com/ai-capabilities-may-be-overhyped-on-bogus-benchmarks-study-finds-2000682577 Examining the geographic concentration of VC investment in AI https://ssti.org/blog/examining-geographic-concentration-vc-investment-ai Margaret Mitchell: artificial general intelligence is ‘just vibes and snake oil’ https://www.ft.com/content/7089bff2-25fc-4a25-98bf-8828ab24f48e