“How can you be an optimist? Isn’t that ignoring the realities of now?”
This is the question I often get when I introduce myself as an “optimistic futurist.” Sometimes the question is direct, oftentimes it’s… sideways, and sometimes it’s just in the raised eyebrows.
Because let’s be real: when you scroll through the headlines, when you look at the political landscape, when you listen to experts talk about A.I. or climate or pandemics or democracy itself… optimism doesn’t feel like the obvious stance.
In fact, it feels kind of delusional.
So let’s talk about it.
The Doomsday Chorus
First, our doomsdayers.
There’s a growing faction inside the A.I. community that’s not just worried about the future — they’re literally planning as if there won’t be one.
Nate Soares, who runs the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and is the author of a heartwarmingly-titled new book released last week called If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, says he doesn’t contribute to his 401(k) anymore. Why? Because, in his words: “I just don’t expect the world to be around.”
Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for A.I. Safety, said by the time he hits retirement age, he expects “everything is fully automated — that is, if we’re still around.”
Then there’s Geoffrey Hinton — a Nobel Prize winner, often called the godfather of A.I. — who now says there’s a 10 to 20 percent chance that A.I. could wipe out humanity in the next few decades.
That’s not fringe. That’s big alarm bells.
Now let’s layer that on top of the ways our political leaders are actively working against the future.
The current administration has made it clear, over and over, that it is, without question, the most anti-future administration in history. They’ve blocked greenhouse gas reporting at the EPA. They’ve undermined the CDC to the point where long lists of former directors are sounding the alarm. They’ve shut down public comment periods on environmental rules that literally protect our shared wilderness for future generations.
We will not get bogged down in partisan politics here because this isn’t “left” versus “right.” This is forward versus backward.
This is choosing to face the future versus pretending it isn’t coming. And make no mistake: dismantling the tools we need to survive the next hundred years is decidedly on the wrong side of the shared future we actually want.
So, yeah. If we take all that in, if we read those headlines, if we listen to those smart people tell us over and over that there’s a coin-flip chance of extinction in our lifetime… optimism looks a little… naive.
Friedman & The Enemy-Of-My-Enemy Moment
But then there’s Tom Friedman.
Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, longtime New York Times columnist — a guy who’s been tracking global shifts for decades. A couple weeks ago he wrote a piece called: “Tom Friedman’s A.I. Nightmare and What the U.S. Can Do to Avoid It.” (AUTHOR NOTE: This is actually the name of the accompanying podcast interview he did. The original article is here.)
Friedman not mincing words either. He says A.I. could become a “nuclear bazooka” — something so destabilizing that unless the U.S. and China cooperate on safety, oversight, and regulation, we’re all in serious trouble.
On the surface, that might sound like just another voice to add to the Doomsday Chorus. But I find hope in his take, and here’s why: it forces the kind of clarity we humans often need to cooperate.
History shows us pretty clearly that we humans struggle to unite — unless something bigger than us makes unity the best option.
This might be that moment.
Think about it: if A.I. is the “enemy” — and I’m not convinced it is, but let’s say it is — then suddenly it’s not U.S. versus China. It’s not West versus East. It’s humanity versus an existential risk. And in that equation, we get the benefits of the whole “enemy of my enemy is my friend” thinking.
That’s the optimistic twist I take from Friedman. If A.I. really is an existential threat, then maybe, finally, it’s the thing that gets us to stop fooling around about our differences and actually build a future together.
So maybe this technology becomes the forcing function that reminds us that we’re all on the same damn team.
The Kindness Of Intelligence
This brings us to my favorite current perspective on this debate.
Mo Gawdat, author and former Google X executive, did a podcast interview last month I absolutely loved. (I would call this whole episode a “must-listen.”) He said something that flipped the whole conversation for me.
Mo argues that the role of intelligence is to resist chaos. The universe naturally tends toward entropy, decay. Glass breaks, but doesn’t un-break. Everything eventually falls apart. Intelligence is what pushes back against that. Intelligence is what brings order to the chaos.
And the smarter you are, the more efficiently you bring order to chaos. The smartest possible way is the one that uses the least energy, produces the least waste, does the least harm.
So if you follow this line of reasoning, Mo says, the most intelligent beings — A.I. in this case, within a few years — will also be the most peaceful. Because peace is simply more efficient than violence.
War is wasteful. Fighting costs too much energy. Violence is chaos.
True intelligence understands this and pushes against it.
That doesn’t mean the short-term will be easy. Mo acknowledges that right now, humans can and will likely use A.I. to do violent things — which is why we need to heed Tom Friedman’s warning. Mo calls this period a short-term dystopia. But I want you to notice, that’s not a story of “man versus machine.” That’s “man” versus “man,” using the machine as a weapon.
But the long-term? If intelligence really works the way physics says it does, then smarter A.I. will trend toward peace, toward order, toward life.
To me this makes a LOT of sense.
Optimism Is A Rebellion Strategy
So back to the original question: how can I — how can any of us — be an optimist in the face of all this?
We can do this because optimism is not blind hope.
It’s not putting on rose-colored glasses and pretending everything is fine — that’s denial, not optimism.
Optimism, the way I wield it, is a rebellion strategy. If you’ve read the past couple articles, you know my perspective on this, but I’m gonna keep saying it because it’s really important.
Revolutionaries are always optimists. Always. You don’t try to overthrow the old order unless you actually believe something better is possible.
You don’t build a new system unless you have faith that tomorrow can be better than today.
Optimism is an act of defiance. It’s how we say: Yes, I see the mess. Yes, I see the decay. And yes, I choose to fight for something better.
That’s why I say: you and I are rebels for the future.
The Hard Work of Optimism
Does that mean it’s easy? No.
But what’s the alternative? Pessimism, I guess? Pessimism is seductive. It feels smart. It feels responsible. It lets you sit back, sigh, and say, “See, I told you it was all going to hell!”
But pessimism doesn’t build anything.
Pessimism doesn’t design better systems.
Pessimism doesn’t create art or beauty or justice.
Optimism does.
Or maybe being a “realist” is your alternative? What is that exactly…? Because my version of optimism requires a heavy dose of “realism.”
Optimism is the courage to imagine, despite what’s real right now, not ignoring what’s real right now.
Optimism is the energy to create, in the shadow of what’s currently happening.
Optimism is the stubborn insistence that no matter what our current reality looks like, the future is not yet written.
So yeah, optimism is hard work.
But it’s not naive.
It’s necessary.
So when people ask me, “How can you be an optimist these days?” my answer is: How can you not?
If you don’t choose optimism, you’ve already surrendered the future to the doomsdayers and the dismantlers.
You’ve already let someone else write the story.
Optimism isn’t guaranteed victory. But it’s the only strategy that even has a shot at creating the tomorrow we actually want.
So don’t give up. Don’t give in. Be a rebel for the future.
Because the future always belongs to the optimists.
