Roger Kimball begins his column in The Spectator about artificial intelligence with this admission. “It’s not often that we get a ringside seat to the Birth of a Narrative.” As you might imagine, the narrative was “AI will end humanity.”

Everyone memorized their lines. “Artificial intelligence was the biggest threat to humanity since, well, since ever. Forget Covid, forget climate catastrophe, forget the population explosion or collapse.”

Not everyone was convinced. “Commentator Miranda Devine was among the first to ask how anyone who had lived through the ‘bogus fear campaigns’ of climate hysteria, Russiagate and Covid could allow himself to be duped yet again by the same cynical freaks using the same playbook.” One writer posted an image of Time magazine from 2006 with one from 2026. The first said “Earth was at a tipping point” and the second warned about “the AI tipping point.”

Of course, the crisis also came with built-in solutions. Bernie Sanders called for a moratorium. Barack Obama encouraged Democrats to take up the issue and thereby never let a crisis go to waste. Everyone else called for international oversight. Right on cue, Bill Gates called for an “international organization” to regulate AI.

Rick DeVos was one of many people who saw through the hype. “These people really only have one solution for everything and it’s just ‘World Communism’ with corporate buzzwords.”

Anyone who has studied the issue of artificial intelligence knows there are potential dangers and significant challenges. But stopping further development or slowing it so the Chinese pass us is not a good position. Handing regulation over to an international agency also makes no sense. What we need are common sense safety protocols and cooler heads.