You’re trapped in a doom loop. Here’s how to get out.

Grant Lee@thisisgrantlee · September 2, 2026 · 4 min read

Originally published by @thisisgrantlee on X. Tech Twitter preserves the original source alongside this readable edition.

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• The post matters because it reframes AI anxiety as a pattern repeating throughout technological history—fears that rarely materialize in predicted forms—and argues that builders and practitioners escape paralyzing doom loops by engaging directly with AI tools rather than remaining on the sidelines
• This shift from speculation to hands-on experimentation is critical: historical precedent (like recorded music creating rather than destroying the music industry) suggests AI will likely generate new job categories, creative possibilities, and industries rather than deliver the apocalyptic scenarios dominating discourse.

Best for builders who want practical takeaways. 4 min read.

For some, it sounds like the “permanent underclass,” or your hard-earned degree becoming obsolete. For others, it sounds like the flatline of all things creative.

If this feels familiar, you may be stuck in the AI doom loop. Don’t worry: escape is possible.

The doom loop takes different forms: social media threads predicting an imminent mass extinction, perpetual references to Terminator or Ex Machina, and generalized feelings of nihilism.

Like most fears, it’s self-propelling. It can even be a tantalizing rabbit hole to fall into, where each AI news clip serves as a guaranteed confirmation that the End Times have arrived.

This is not to merely wave off or dismiss AI-related fear. Today’s technological advancement is steeped in uncertainty, and uncertainty leads us to fill in the gaps. It is important to acknowledge, however, how these gaps are steered by negativity bias.

Negative information carries more psychological weight than positive information that is equally as intense. When pessimistic hypotheses flood the zone of most online discourse surrounding AI, the doom loop is fed.

Notably, the doom loop is fed by the same fears that have paired with most technological advancements to date.

Even more notably, technology rarely delivers on our fears in the form we predict.

The fear of technology cannibalizing creativity, for instance, is nothing new. In 1906, composer John Philip Sousa led a campaign against recorded music, believing it would “ruin the artistic development of music in this country.” This campaign made its way to a congressional hearing, lobbied alongside artistic powerhouses Mark Twain and Victor Herbert.

He believed it would eradicate live music. It would retire the use of our vocal cords. It would eliminate the “amateur” musician. Music teachers would become “without field or calling.”

Do these concerns sound familiar? More importantly, do they sound fulfilled?

While Sousa argued that phonographs would make music soulless, recording technology later played a crucial role in the rise and spread of R&B music…

…which gave birth to the subgenre we literally call “Soul.”

Recording music created a new sector of job opportunities, a new industry, and a new mode of creative expression. AI is actively doing the same.

You’re trapped in a doom loop. Here’s how to get out.

Before you dive in

We doomscroll, you upskill

We doomscroll, you upskill