Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares

By Hagen Blix & Ingeborg Glimmer. Common Notions Press, March 2025. Paperback, 208 pages. ISBN: 9781945335174.

Central Thesis

The authors contend that widespread anxieties about artificial intelligence fundamentally reflect anxieties about contemporary capitalism rather than the technology itself. They reframe capitalism as an autonomous intelligent agent to explain public fears about job displacement, surveillance, and technological dominance.

Key Arguments

"Fears about AI tell us more about capitalism today than the technology of the future."

AI fears reveal capitalism's actual mechanisms -- from venture capitalists to warehouse workers, different groups project distinct economic anxieties onto AI narratives. Rather than technological inevitability, these fears expose real power imbalances and exploitation structures.

Concrete Threats (Without AI): automated systems protecting the powerful while punishing the poor; expanding surveillance infrastructure; skill devaluation; wage pressure; proliferation of precarious gig work; and intensifying inequality.

Notable Quotes

"If we're concerned with the battle for the future, we must be ready to fight, not imaginary future AI overlords, but the capitalist structure that already produces the things we fear."

"Why We Fear AI points the way to a different and brighter future, one in which our labor, knowledge, and technologies serve the people rather than capital."

Author Credentials

Hagen Blix: Cognitive scientist in New York City specializing in language, AI, and political economy. Ingeborg Glimmer: German tech worker and industry researcher focused on machine learning development.

Critical Reception

Shannon Vallor praised how the authors demonstrate "how AI and capitalism today work in mutually reinforcing lockstep to deskill and devalue humans." Nick Couldry emphasized the work's challenge to "apparent truths of AI that businesses and governments are so keen to impose on us."