Source: Brownstone Institute
by Roger Bate
“efore Covid, I would have described myself as a technological optimist. New technologies almost always arrive amid exaggerated fears. Railways were supposed to cause mental breakdowns, bicycles were thought to make women infertile or insane, and early electricity was blamed for everything from moral decay to physical collapse. Over time, these anxieties faded, societies adapted, and living standards rose. The pattern was familiar enough that artificial intelligence seemed likely to follow it: disruptive, sometimes misused, but ultimately manageable. The Covid years unsettled that confidence — not because technology failed, but because institutions did.” (01/07/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/how-a-techno-optimist-became-a-grave-skeptic/