Why I’m romantic about climate change

Why hasn’t an anti-technology movement emerged? It seems to me that we face two overlapping crises. One is obviously climate change. AI, if it doesn’t wipe us out, is supposed to help us fix that. But artificial intelligence leads us to the other crisis, one that is harder to name: let’s call it alienation-through-technology. Are they, at root, one and the same?

Imagine that Elon Musk solves climate change next month. He develops a totally clean energy source so everything can continue much as we are with no need for apocalyptic anxiety. It would be wonderful news, I suppose. But part of me would feel a bit miffed. Because there are lots of other things wrong with our tech-driven civilisation, and suddenly the pressure would be off us to fix them. Climate change is useful in a way, because it tells us that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we live.