Those who crit­i­cize so-called “AI doomers” often over­look that there is a broader, intel­lec­tu­ally serious tradi­tion of tech­no­log­ical doomerism that goes back decades. To revisit these works is to wonder whether AI really presents new risks, or if it is simply the mani­fes­ta­tion of a risk previ­ously fore­told.Of course, predic­tions of global apoc­a­lypse are as ancient as humanity. Given the histor­ical track record—no global apoc­a­lypse yet!—those predicting apoc­a­lypse have trad...