Cars ruined cities. Anyone can see that cities built before the invention of the automobile are incomparably more beautiful and serene than anything built after them. The contrast between Los Angeles and Prague is unmistakable. But people like things that move fast and make life easier, which means we’re stuck with the modern city hellscape whether we like it or not. And today, the same is true for AI.

The contrast between the internet five years ago and today is unmistakable: content-slop, workslop, AI-generated comments, fake opinions and phony judgments, trite phrases, apocalyptic hysteria, the biggest intellectual-property heist in human history – all because of the invention of Large Language Models (LLMs). But again – it doesn’t matter how we feel because the speed and ease of chatbots make them unstoppable. We’re stuck living in the hellscape of modern digital culture whether we like it or not.

At a certain point, people do become aware of safety issues with new tech – and that’s when those in charge of protecting the value of the industry start offering solutions. For cars, they invented seatbelts, speed limits and penalties for drunk driving. For AI, they’ve invented something called “guardrails.” This apparently means somewhere within the technology there are barriers to stop you doing stupid things. It’s a great idea in theory. And it’s true that seatbelts did reduce car-crash fatalities, so they’re........

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