by Clinton Akporherhe
If left unchecked, “I’m not really a fan of AI” can, in time, become “Let’s blow up the AI data centres.” It sounds absurd, perhaps even laughable, but the distance between mild disdain and outright hostility is often shorter than we imagine. Human beings have always found it easier to direct their anger towards people, ideas, or institutions. But what happens when the object of that resentment is neither flesh nor philosophy, but technology itself?
It is an unsettling thought, especially when technology is arguably the grandest expression of humanity’s collective ingenuity, the accumulated triumph of thousands of years of discovery, invention, failure, and progress. Yet there is a peculiar arrogance woven into our relationship with it. We like to believe we remain firmly in control; that we can simply unplug the machine, switch off the screen, delete the app, and walk away whenever we choose. And perhaps, for a while, that illusion holds. After all, life before the internet now feels almost impossible to imagine. The speed with which we communicate, the ease with which we learn, work, create, and witness lives unfolding across continents have become so deeply woven into our existence that they feel less like conveniences and more like extensions of ourselves.
Technology has given us extraordinary gifts. But what happens when those gifts begin to ask something of us in return? What happens when technology no longer merely helps you, but begins, in subtle and unsettling ways, to become you? What happens if AI doesn’t just assist you…but replaces you?
Ted Kaczynski saw that possibility long before artificial intelligence entered the chat, though he arrived at it through a worldview that ultimately descended into violent extremism.
A mathematical prodigy who abandoned academia for the isolation of a cabin in the Montana wilderness, Kaczynski became convinced that technological progress was not merely altering civilisation but imprisoning it. In his manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, he argued that every technological advance demanded another surrender of human autonomy, that convenience was merely the velvet glove concealing an ever-tightening grip.
To him, machines did not simply perform our labour; they gradually dictated the conditions under which we lived, worked, thought, and even rebelled. His diagnosis of society’s dependence on technology continues to provoke debate, but how he sought to halt that progress, the campaign of bombings that killed three people and injured many others, rendered his philosophy morally bankrupt. Yet the questions he raised, stripped of the violence with which he pursued them, have become strangely difficult to dismiss. In an age where algorithms curate our attention, software drafts our thoughts, and artificial intelligence increasingly performs work once reserved for human expertise, Kaczynski’s central anxiety no longer reads as the delusion of a recluse. It reads as a warning that arrived decades too early, delivered by a man whose crimes ensured that few were willing to separate the question from the questioner.
I was no child prodigy like Kaczynski, but I had always possessed a gift of my own: words. There was something almost magical about weaving language into art, arranging sentences that could paint pictures the eye had never seen. It was little surprise, then, that the very first skill I confidently listed on my CV, long before I had any meaningful corporate experience, was copywriting. By 2021, I was thriving in my role when Grammarly entered my workflow. It felt like the perfect technological companion, not a replacement, but an assistant. It corrected my grammar, tidied my punctuation, and polished my writing while leaving the ideas entirely my own. Then came QuillBot, my first real encounter with artificial intelligence. Unlike Grammarly, it could do more than correct mistakes; it could rewrite my copy, make it smoother, sharper, longer, or more concise with remarkable ease. My work improved, my boss was impressed, but I knew I hadn’t done it alone. As Uchiha Madara once said, “This is not power of your creation.” Whatever praise I earned, QuillBot deserved at least half the credit. Even so, there was comfort in knowing it was still only an editorial partner. It could refine what I had written, but it could not stare at a blank page, imagine an idea, and bring it to life. The authorship was still mine, and with it came no real fear of being replaced. Then, scarcely a year later, generative AI arrived, and the relationship between man and machine changed forever.
When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, I made sure I was among the first to join the waiting list. Back then, you had to wait your turn for access, a delay of only a few minutes, but one that somehow made the experience feel momentous. I cannot remember my first prompts, though I would wager it was to write an article or marketing copy. Until that moment, I had never seriously entertained the possibility that artificial intelligence could perform one of the very tasks I was employed to do. Yet there it was, generating coherent prose in seconds. I remember thinking to myself, “Giants are about to walk the earth again, like in the days of Noah.” Only these giants were not flesh and blood; they were technological.
Then came Google’s Gemini, and even the simple act of searching the internet began to change. Ask for a restaurant nearby, and instead of being presented with a list of websites, you are greeted by the confident opinion of a machine that has never tasted salt. Almost in real time, I watched years of learning search engine optimisation slowly lose value. Today, it no longer feels like a race to master a profession; it feels like a race to continually acquire new skills before artificial intelligence learns them faster than I do.
I certainly will not become another Ted Kaczynski, nor will I be calling for the demolition of AI data centres. Artificial intelligence is here to stay, and there is little wisdom in waging war against reality. As Dr. Jordan Peterson once said, “You can’t twist the fabric of reality without having it snap back.” Instead, I have chosen to approach generative AI, whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, or whatever comes next, the same way I once approached Grammarly and QuillBot: as an editorial partner rather than a creative substitute. Kaczynski chose to wage war against technology. I have chosen to negotiate with it. I rarely ask AI to generate ideas for me. I still begin where every writer should, with a blank page and an uncomfortable silence. I think first, then I write, and only afterwards do I invite AI into the process. Perhaps that is how I have preserved both my craft and my peace of mind. Ironically, the very writing skills I feared AI would diminish have become the skills that allow me to use it well; good writing, it turns out, produces good prompts. I know this is only the beginning, and only God knows where this technology will take us.
For now, I think I have made my peace with artificial intelligence. Have you?