We Won't Survive in a World Where Truth Is Impossible to Prove

Everyone keeps warning us about the existential threat of artificial intelligence (AI).

Machines becoming smarter than humans.

Jobs disappearing.

Autonomous weapons.

Computers one day deciding they no longer need us . . . Perhaps.

But the real existential threat is already here.

We are losing our ability to know what is real.

Civilization can survive disagreement.

It can survive bad politics, stupid leaders, corrupt institutions, and even war.

What it cannot survive for very long is the destruction of shared reality.

For all of human history, people have lied.

Governments have lied.

Politicians have lied.

Newspapers have lied.

Propagandists have lied.

But there was always something standing in the way: facts. Then came photographs, audio, video, and finally, smartphones in everyone’s pocket. For more than a century, technology made it harder to run from reality. Now AI is reversing that.

We used to argue about what the facts meant.