How to deal with A(I)nxiety
AI dread and AI anxiety are real. Here's how to stay grounded.
A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting cross-legged at my computer, eyes wide as orbs, trying not to scream. I was knee-deep reading a chapter for my AI Safety course titled “Overview of Catastrophic AI risks,” which details the major risks humans face if we develop AI without proper safety mechanisms in place.
As I read about AI risks (some of them existential), I felt a slow dread creep from my stomach to my shoulders to my head, where it formed a frenetic pinball of energy, bouncing into the loose corners of my mind with questions determined to make themselves heard:
“Why aren’t we being more careful?”
“Why aren’t we prioritizing safe innovation over rapid innovation?”
“How are we going to survive this?”
Depending on whether you’re a doomer or an accelerationist, you’ll either nod or scoff at such questions. But regardless of which camp you sit in, it’s difficult to refute that these questions are worth asking — that they’re worth us trying to answer. When leading AI thinkers predict a 5% chance of AI causing extinction-level harm, I think we can all agree that exploring these questions is valid.
But dwelling in these questions for too long sometimes fills me with a dread I’ve come to name A(I)nxiety. My A(I)nxiety loves to pester me with questions like the above — so much so that I’ve found it useful to turn these questions into art. When you use colors and paints and pens, it somehow helps convert transmute the perilous into the playful.
I know most of you aren’t spending as many hours studying risks — and so your A(I)nxiety might be less pronounced, or totally nonexistent. This is a great thing, and my intention with this newsletter is not to increase fear or worry, or to create anxiety over AI where there was none before.
My goal is to aid anyone who might be plagued with such questions, especially as we progress towards a future where AI does more of our work and becomes more intertwined with our personal lives. I do believe this transition will happen; that it’s unstoppable, and somewhat beyond our individual control. However, one action that we can control is figure out how to cope with the anxiety that accompanies massive change.
3 practices for soothing A(I)nxiety
Understand the science behind AI anxiety. Breaking down the science behind why I feel AI anxiety has helped me to make sense of it: for instance, understanding that this emotion is a response to uncertainty and to a perceived loss of control helps me to think about how to create more certainty in my life. Understanding that my brain’s amygdala (which is responsible for processing emotions like fear and anxiety) activates when it perceives a threat reminds me that (right now, at least) that threat is imaginary and abstract. When I bring awareness to my physiological responses, I can process and release the feelings they create more efficiently. I remind myself of what’s real, and that all I can control in this moment is my internal response to what currently exists externally.
Stay grounded in present risks and dangers, rather than over focusing on hypothetical risks of the future. Futurist Alvin Toffler coined the term “future shock,” which occurs when the rate of technological change outpaces our ability to adapt. Future shock can cause feelings of overwhelm and helplessness as our brains attempt to keep pace with change. With AI, this feels especially poignant, given that its pace of change is exponential. Coupled with the media’s tendency to over focus on the negative and publish stories with controversial headlines, future shock can exacerbate anxiety. It can be helpful to focus on the actual and the tangible issues with AI (algorithmic bias, a lack of explainability in AI systems, sparse accountability, AI-driven misinformation) versus speculative risks (mass extinction, rogue AIs, killer robots). When we over focus on the hypothetical dangers of the future, we forget to put our time and resources into solving the issues of today (which should, in theory, help mitigate some of these more catastrophic risks of the future).
Take action, even if that action is small. I’ve found the most potent antidote for anxiety to be action. For instance — to remedy the stress that comes from NOT creating, I try to get myself to just… write. Even if only one sentence. A solve for feeling anxious about your romantic relationship could be to take action and communicate that anxiety to your partner. Almost always, action is a remedy for anxiety. In the context of AI, this is especially important: the more people who are interested in and contributing to the building of Responsible AI, the more likely it is that we can pressurize companies and governments to develop AI that is safe and ethical.
Here are a few ways to get involved in Responsible AI:
Join a community (such as All Tech is Human or the RemAIning Human community), where you can meet others interested in ethical technology and participate in projects that contribute to ethical tech. Community builds awareness of key issues and unity amongst diversity of opinion — essential components for Responsible AI development.
Attend an event where you can share your voice, such as the Ai Salon or similar events in your area. It’s paramount to feel heard when moving through anxiety, and contributing your perspective and supporting initiatives that align with your values can help you feel more in control of the AI future.
Educate yourself. Knowledge is power, and I’ve found that simply understanding more about what makes AI “responsible” has helped empower me to do more from there. I’d recommend courses out of BlueDot Impact and by reading diverse perspectives on AI development (such as AI Snake Oil and Gary Marcus’s newsletter).
If all of that fails, making art does help (as it does with most things!). I doodled the above drawing in a moment of dread, and it eventually inspired this piece, which catalyzed me to do more research, which helped me articulate tangible ways to soothe my own dread.
How do you calm your AI dread — or anxiety of any kind? What practices have helped you that might help others?
Until next time,
Cecilia
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RemAIning Human is written and edited by Cecilia Callas.
Interesting take. I just wrote my first piece about AI, with a pretty different take on AI - I don’t have AI fear at all.
I believe that we don’t really fear AI we fear what AI is telling us to embrace - the highest version of ourselves.
Would be happy to hear your thoughts on it.
https://open.substack.com/pub/placzebo/p/stop-hitting-snooze-on-the-ai-larm?r=14inwj&utm_medium=ios
nice artwork and appreciate the food for thought this post offered!
I find it interesting that writing helps calm your A(I) anxiety. Since starting the AI safety course, I have tried writing, but I have been unable to follow through on any of my recent ideas due to how negative they sound. When I write negative valence content, it seems to add fuel to the fire of my AI dread, so I have been taking a break from writing until the course is over.
To calm my anxiety, I have been exploring science fiction that touches on AI to see the potential good outcomes that are possible for us, if we are able safely develop these AI advancements to come. For example, Dune does not have any AI! and Star Trek has some very interesting philosophical discussion round human-AI relationships. Playing/watching soccer and playing with my cat have been some great ways to reduce "future shock" for me as well.