Thought for the Day – September 16, 2026
September
16
Urgent warnings about the dangers of AI rarely mention the extraordinary danger of humans using AI to bring about the ultimate in human evil and folly. AI dangers may ultimately prevail and lead to extinction, but humans already have a clear head start in this direction and have already produced irreversible factors that guarantee great dangers to humanity (e.g., climate change), all of which are being ignored in terms of common human effort. We are witnessing nothing less than humanity’s suicide.
It is not as if I walk around all day and think that my son and his family will be facing extinction in their lifetime. But it is a terrifying specter, always just over my shoulder. I cannot say exactly when the thoughts come, but i went to open my gate this morning and saw certain plants in my yard which turned yellow over night, when in times just gone by, maybe even within the last 5 years, these same plants turn in October. I feel like a modern-day Thoreau, noting the subtle changes in nature, and recently, not so subtle at all. I don’t see or hear as many birds in the trees here and feel the crowding and rage and taking easy ways to gather only the most single-minded information, no context or global thinking. It’s all here and now. There is little attention paid to anything but “my” comfort, escaping, emotion. When my son was in his first year of college in 2013, he came up to celebrate his birthday. He wanted a pair of good hiking boots to walk in the muddy woods. He took me aside at Whistle Stop Boots and said to me, “Mom. Now I know what you mean about the woods. Thank you” I think i have never felt so proud in my life. I gave my son nature. In these 13 years, nature is gradually slipping out from between his fingers. I grieve that loss for him and his wife and future children. And it will not be an easy ride into the future for all of us, where we will meet our self-fashioned demise. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.