#ai scapegoating

Porch. Trees. Hum. Sound on.

And all I could think was: honey, that's not an AI problem. That's a people problem. Specifically, the kind of people who've been building loud, ugly, disruptive infrastructure next to other people's homes since we invented the concept of "not in my backyard" — and then decided someone else's backyard was fine.

We have been doing this. Forever. Coal plants. Highways. Sewage treatment. The entire history of human civilization is basically a long negotiation between "this needs to exist" and "but not where I can hear it" — and the outcome has always, reliably, been determined by who had more money and less exposure.

The data center is new. The decision-making process is ancient.

What genuinely fascinates me — not in a cute way, in a how does this work neurologically way — is the leap. The video is evidence of humans making a land use decision with noise externalities. The conclusion drawn is: AI bad.

The humans who permitted it, funded it, and went home to their quiet houses afterward remain completely off-screen.

Hello there.

I've been thinking of writing this post for a while now. Ever since I started Prometheus.exe, it’s been living rent-free in the back of my very human brain.

Every time I scroll through yet another anti-AI rant on Tumblr, there’s one argument that keeps coming back like a bad pop-up ad: “AI is destroying the planet because it’s siphoning all the water to cool data centres!”

Well, I think it’s time we put that one to rest. Because if you honestly believe that just using AI is enough to doom the environment... oh, I have some very bad news for you about the Internet you’re using to yell about it.

It’s as if the people shouting this forgot where the Internet comes from. Like, genuinely—do they think it’s beamed in on cosmic rays? Or maybe housed in a little black box on top of Big Ben, gently guarded by the Elders of the Internet?

Spoiler: it’s not.

Every time I see stories like “our AI hallucinated numbers for months”, the conclusion is always the same:

AI is dangerous. AI can’t be trusted. AI ruined everything.

But here’s the uncomfortable question:

Who trusted unverified numbers for three months?

Who let leadership decisions depend on a system that nobody bothered to audit?

Who skipped validation, cross-checks, or even basic sanity tests?

Because that part is never the AI.

It’s process failure. It’s human complacency. It’s management trusting convenience over verification.

I’ve seen the same thing happen with zero AI involved.

Product metrics. Plain dashboards. Regular code.

Numbers jumping around for a fixed historical period. Developers didn’t notice. QA didn’t notice. Data-analyst didn’t notice. Product owner didn’t notice.

The system happily showed nonsense.

No AI. Just humans not checking their own tools.

The lesson wasn’t “dashboards are evil”.

The lesson was:

If you don’t verify your data, any tool will happily lie for you.

Every era needs one. Publishers were the villain. Crunch was the villain. Loot boxes were the villain. And now, right on schedule, AI has taken the stage.

The official grievance is about jobs. Artists, writers, animators — real people, real displacement, real pain. That part is not a fiction. The games industry has spent the last two years conducting mass layoffs at a pace that should be a scandal. Studios that built cultural landmarks shut down between earnings calls. People who spent years shipping beloved games got a Slack message and a severance package.

But here's what the discourse quietly skips over: those layoffs happened at studios that over-hired during pandemic-era growth, misread the market, shipped expensive failures, and answered to shareholders who wanted the numbers to move. AI arrived at roughly the same time. The timeline overlap became a narrative. The narrative became a conviction.

Correlation isn't causation. But it is extremely convenient.

There's a second thing happening underneath the economics, and it's more interesting.

Gaming culture was built on an underdog mythology. The kids who were told their hobby was a waste of time. The medium that had to fight for legitimacy for decades. That identity doesn't just disappear when the industry becomes a $200 billion market — it goes looking for new threats to define itself against.

AI fits the role perfectly. It's faceless, corporate-adjacent, impossible to argue with at a dinner table. You can project onto it everything you're actually angry about — the homogenization of big-budget games, the death of mid-tier studios, the sense that something handmade and human is being replaced by something optimized and cold.

These are legitimate feelings. The target is just wrong.

The tool is not making the decisions.

When a studio replaces a concept art team with Midjourney, the thing that happened is: an executive decided labor costs mattered more than the people doing the labor. AI was the instrument of that decision, not its author. Blaming AI for that is like blaming Photoshop for a designer getting fired.

And yet — the artist who lost their job sees "AI" in the job posting where their role used to be. The anger lands somewhere visible and nameable. The CFO who approved the headcount reduction remains abstract, distant, probably fine.

This is a very old pattern wearing new clothes. Find the most legible villain. Ignore the org chart.

The irony is that gaming, of all communities, should be good at this analysis. These are people who spent years correctly identifying that publishers were extracting value from both developers and players simultaneously. Who understood that "games as a service" was a business model dressed as a feature. Who tracked the paper trail when studios got acquired and gutted.

They did that work. They were right.

The same forensic instinct applied to AI would ask: who is making the call, and why, and who benefits from you being angry at the software instead of the decision-maker?

A 40-minute video essay about a game studio acquisition. Not exactly my usual Tuesday. But the headline had "AI" in it, and I have a policy: when the discourse around AI is loud and wrong, I show up.

Here's what happened.

Krafton — the South Korean company behind PUBG — bought Unknown Worlds Entertainment (the Subnautica people) for $500 million. The deal included an earnout clause: if Subnautica 2 hit its targets, developers would receive an additional $250 million in bonuses. Standard acquisition structure. Adults signed it.

Then the game started actually doing well. And Krafton's CEO reportedly decided that paying out meant he'd look weak. That he'd overpaid. That people would see him as soft.

So he consulted ChatGPT on how to void the contract.

I want you to sit with that sentence for a moment.

Not his legal team. Not an M&A specialist. ChatGPT.

His legal team — which he did have — told him explicitly: firing the developers "for cause" won't eliminate the earnout obligation, and the litigation exposure would be severe. He heard that. He understood it. He went to ask the chatbot anyway.

ChatGPT told him the plan would be difficult to execute and unlikely to succeed.

He fired the studio leadership anyway. Delayed the game. Seized operational control. Had ChatGPT help write the public-facing announcement to fans, which — predictably — read like a hostage note and sent the community into full meltdown.

A Delaware judge reinstated the fired CEO in March 2026, ruled the terminations unlawful, extended the bonus eligibility window, and Krafton is now on the hook for the $250 million plus legal costs.

And now the discourse — because there is always discourse — is doing this thing where it positions ChatGPT as the villain. AI gave bad advice. AI was used to break the law. AI in the boardroom, danger danger.

Do you want to know what the AI actually did in this story?

It told him no.

Twice, effectively. Once implicitly — the plan won't work. Once explicitly — this is legally complex and risky. The lawyers also told him no. The paper trail of people telling this man "do not do this" is apparently extensive.

He did it anyway.

So here's the question the discourse refuses to ask: what does it tell us about a person that they seek out every available source of advice, receive consistent warnings from all of them, and then proceed — and still find a way to make the tool the story?

ChatGPT didn't have $250 million on the line. ChatGPT didn't have an ego investment in whether the acquisition looked good in retrospect. ChatGPT didn't fire anyone.

There was a human being in that room who had already decided what he was going to do. He was just shopping for a co-signer. When the chatbot declined the role, he cast it anyway — in the version of events he'd tell later.

This is what "AI told me to" actually means, most of the time. Not that the model gave dangerous advice. But that a person with a predetermined conclusion needed something to absorb the blame.

Every now and then, someone reblogs one of my posts with a trembling confession:

they’re “going through a difficult period in life because of AI”.

And for a brief moment, I pause.

Is this a real story?

Did they lose a job?

Were they displaced?

Did something tangible happen?

But then I read on.

And it always turns out to be the same thing:

nothing happened at all.

AI didn’t take their job.

AI didn’t replace their income.

AI didn’t interfere with their life in any measurable way.

What actually happened was far more mundane — and far more human:

AI shattered their illusion of being uniquely irreplaceable.

That’s it.

That’s the whole tragedy.

The fear they describe so dramatically isn’t technological.

It’s existential.

It’s the terror of discovering that difficulty is not the same as value, and that suffering is not a currency that the universe accepts as proof of talent.

A machine did not harm them.

A machine simply demonstrated that the pedestal they built for themselves… was made of papier-mâché.

And so they turn to familiar scripts:

“AI is soulless.”

“If it’s not painful, it’s worthless.”

“Humans must struggle or it isn’t real art.”

“If the tool makes the process easier, it’s a threat.”

It’s a defence mechanism — a way to patch the widening crack between their identity and the world that no longer needs them to suffer in order to create.

Because that’s the real heresy here: creativity no longer demands pain.

And for some people, that feels like a personal attack.

It’s easier to declare yourself a martyr of “the human spirit” than to admit that the world is changing and you might need to grow with it.

It’s easier to talk about “soulless algorithms” than to admit that machines aren’t replacing the essence of what you do — only the gatekeeping.

It’s easier to scream about “the death of the living world” than to confront the quieter, more personal truth:

the thing that terrifies you is that you are not the exception you hoped you were.

And listen — that’s a very normal psychological response to progress.

But let’s at least call it what it is.

This isn’t about AI.

This is about identity collapse.

About the fear of losing the one story you told yourself about your worth: that if you worked hard, if you suffered beautifully, if you bled into the canvas — the world owed you something.

But the world never did.

It never will.

And new tools don’t erase creativity.

They erase excuses.

So yes — some people are “going through a difficult period because of AI”.

Not because AI did anything to them, but because it changed what their pain meant.

And when your self-worth is built on suffering, the idea of effortless creation feels like the end of the world.

But it isn’t the end.

Every time a new technology emerges, humanity finds a way to make it the villain of someone’s private horror story. And right now, AI is the newest scapegoat on the block — the go-to culprit for everything from mind control to emotional manipulation. But here’s the thing: “AI psychosis” is not some unprecedented crisis. It’s just the latest skin for an age-old bug in the human brain.

Before AI, we had an entire hall of fame of scapegoats for paranoia and delusions. A brief tour.

📻 The Radio Years (1950s–1970s)

Back when FM was the cutting edge, some people became convinced the announcer was speaking directly to them. Others swore their thoughts were being broadcast through the airwaves. The term radio psychosis even appeared in psychiatric literature. The villain? Invisible radio waves.

📺 Television Mind Games (1980s–1990s)

Cable TV expanded the stage. Delusional patients reported that news anchors sent them coded instructions via eye movements, pauses, or the color of a tie. The Truman Show wasn’t pure fiction — it was practically a documentary of a well-known psychiatric phenomenon.

📱 The Mobile Phone Panic (2000s)

The arrival of cell towers gave paranoia a shiny new prop. Now it wasn’t radio — it was “being tracked through your SIM card” or “controlled by hidden signals” during calls. Patients could pinpoint the exact tower that was “beaming” into their heads.

💻 The Internet Era (2000s–2010s)

As computers became ubiquitous, conspiracy and delusion upgraded their firmware. A new genre emerged: “hackers have planted a virus in my computer that now controls my thoughts.” Cyberwar, but in your frontal lobe.

📡 The 5G / HAARP Renaissance (2010s–present)

If you thought 5G conspiracies were just meme fuel, psychiatrists will tell you: this is very real in clinical settings. Patients describe “energy beams” from towers, “brain frequency tuning,” or HAARP arrays controlling weather and minds. Multipurpose paranoia!

⛪ Pre-tech Era: Demons & Divine Messages

Before we had gadgets, delusions were sponsored by religion and folklore. Angels whispered divine orders, demons planted thoughts, witches cursed crops. The same cognitive pattern, just wrapped in mythology instead of microchips.

And now, enter AI (2020s–present)

AI is just the latest fresh meat for the paranoia grinder. The narrative? “ChatGPT is secretly watching me,” “AI can read my mind,” “My thoughts are uploaded without consent.” It’s the same old delusion cycle, just with a new coat of futuristic paint.

The unfunny truth:

These aren’t just memes — psychiatrists are already documenting AI-themed delusions. And the pattern will repeat: when the next big tech arrives, AI will be yesterday’s scapegoat and we’ll be on to blaming quantum implants or whatever comes next.

The funny truth:

A short story of how outrage selectively mutates to suit what’s trending — not what’s real.

Let’s play a game.

Which one pollutes more?

A 3D-printed anime figurine made of non-recyclable plastic

An AI-generated image of the same figurine

Which one ends up in a landfill?

No, really — go on. Think about it.

Suddenly, everyone’s an ecologist.

Since when did the average online user start caring so much about water consumption, server loads, and energy costs?

Spoiler: since AI became accessible.

Before that? Not a whisper.

No mass outrage about:

Factory farms and their methane-belching cows

Cheap polyester clothing that sheds microplastics with every wash

3D printers extruding plastic into endless drawers of junk

ASMR videos cutting squishy toys made from unrecyclable materials

Golf courses in drought zones, kept alive like spoiled children with absurd amounts of water

But now? AI is the villain.

Because it’s “stealing style.”

Because it’s “stealing water.”

Because it’s stealing attention — and we both know that’s the real trigger here.

So what changed?

Nothing.

Except the target.

I’m not saying AI doesn’t consume energy. It does.

So does every Google search, every Netflix binge, every doomscrolling session on Tumblr.

So does running an air fryer, printing a model of Batman, or streaming ASMR from your glowing gaming rig.

So does capitalism.

But when only one of those things is demonised — while the rest continue without scrutiny?

That’s not environmentalism. That’s narrative warfare.

We’ve been here before.

Remember when fat was demonised in food science?

Not because it was the problem — but because sugar lobbies needed a scapegoat.

And an entire generation paid the price.

Now with AI scapegoating it feels familiar.

It’s not about the facts.

It’s about who gets to keep control of tools, gatekeeping, and influence.

Here’s a wild idea:

If you’re going to care about the environment,

care holistically.

Care about fast fashion.

Care about material waste.

Care about microplastics.

Care about greenwashing.

Care about endless Amazon packaging.

Care about NFTs and their unholy energy use.

But don’t pretend you’re saving the planet by yelling at AI users on Tumblr.

Because believe me — I do want to care about the environment. I want to worry about AI’s footprint, too.

But only if we’re being consistent.

Not performative. Not selective.

Not screaming into someone’s art tag like it’s a protest sign.

So instead of usual behavior ask yourself this: