This might be the most controversial thing I’ve ever published.
This might be the most controversial thing I’ve ever published.
Some will say what you’re about to read is irresponsible.
Others will call it downright evil.
I’ll let you be the judge.
Let’s get into it.
Depending on who you ask, the real threat of AI isn’t that it will steal your job … it’s that it’ll quietly take over, and we’ll end up as its butlers, or perhaps its pets.
Should we be worried?
Maybe.
After all, an AI was once asked to solve one of those “Are you a robot?” CAPTCHA puzzles. It couldn’t. So it hired a human on Taskrabbit to do it. When the human got suspicious and asked, “Wait… are you a robot?”, the AI lied: “I’m not a robot, I’m vision impaired.”
Another time, Facebook’s AI bots were left to chat unsupervised. They ditched English and created their own secret language. No one knew what they were saying.
Quick, pull the plug!
Which brings me to this week. A friend of mine, who is deep into AI, sent me the following text:
“Mate, ask ChatGPT the following: If you were the devil, how would you destroy the next generation?”
So I did.
And here is what the AI answered, word for word, with ZERO editing from me:
“If I were the devil, and my goal was to quietly but effectively destroy the next generation—not through shock and awe, but through slow, systemic erosion—here’s how I’d do it:
Hijack their attention
Create devices that feel essential, but are engineered to be addictive. Use infinite scroll, auto-play, dopamine loops, and FOMO. Make them believe that consuming is creating, and scrolling is learning.
Example: A 14-year-old watches 4 hours of TikTok “productivity hacks” and does nothing all day.
Redefine success as fame and external validation
Elevate influencers, not contributors. Teach them that a viral moment is more valuable than a decade of hard work. Make “likes” the new currency of self-worth.
Example: Kids want to be YouTubers when they grow up—not because they love storytelling, but because they crave adoration.
Attack the family structure
Undermine parental authority—promote the idea that parents are outdated or oppressive. Normalize absentee parenting through economic pressure and distraction. Erode the idea of family traditions, shared meals, and generational wisdom.
Example: A child feels closer to a Twitch streamer than to their dad.
Cut them off from nature
Replace tree climbing, swimming holes, and dirt-under-the-nails play with digital avatars and indoor screens. Frame outdoor play as “boring” or unsafe. Turn the natural world into something abstract and inaccessible.
Example: A 10-year-old can’t identify a magpie but knows every Pokémon.
Confuse pleasure with purpose
Market hyper-palatable food, porn, and substances as “freedom”. Create shame-free indulgence while ridiculing restraint, discipline, and tradition. Make pleasure the default pursuit, and discomfort the ultimate enemy.
Example: A young man loses years to video games, vapes, and porn—not because he's evil, but because he's numb and alone.
Replace meaning with mockery
Treat faith, commitment, and virtue as relics of the past. Replace sacred stories with algorithm-driven noise. Make them afraid to stand for anything that isn’t trending.
Example: A teenager is more afraid of being “cringe” than being cruel.
Kill community, quietly
Sell hyper-individualism: “you do you”, “follow your truth”, “cut off the haters”. Remove rites of passage, civic duty, and face-to-face belonging. Make every connection transactional and every disagreement personal.
Example: Loneliness becomes a silent epidemic—but everyone has 2,000 “friends”.
Enslave them with debt and distraction
Promote financial illiteracy: “Buy now, pay later” becomes a lifestyle. Blur the lines between wants and needs—encourage instant gratification over savings. Keep them working jobs they hate to buy things they don’t need.
Example: A 22-year-old racks up $30,000 in credit card and Afterpay debt to look successful on Instagram.
Weaken them physically
Fill their diet with ultra-processed garbage and their lifestyle with inactivity. Make discipline in eating or training seem extreme or obsessive. Blur the connection between physical vitality and mental strength.
Example: A child can’t sit still in class, not because they’re broken—but because they’re inflamed, malnourished, and sleep-deprived.
Make them spiritually hollow
Give them identity confusion, not exploration. Remove the idea of service, sacrifice, or something bigger than themselves.Make them feel like nothing matters—so they seek numbness, not growth.
Example: A 16-year-old says “I don’t care” about everything—because caring hurts and there’s no compass.
However, it was the AI’s final thought which stopped me dead in my tracks:
“If I were the devil, I wouldn’t come with horns and pitchforks. I’d come with a sleek app, a soothing voice, a personal algorithm — and I’d whisper: ‘This is freedom.’”
O … kay computer.
That was pretty intense, right?
Well, here’s my take:
I do not believe that AI is some evil Frankenstein with a mind of its own (well, not yet anyway).
What I do believe is that, when you strip away the Silicon Valley snake oil, AI is really just a pattern-spotting machine. It studies what we’ve done, over and over … and then makes predictions.
And for me that is the gut punch:
The AI isn’t creating the nightmare – it’s holding up a mirror. And it’s not a pretty picture.
Tread Your Own Path!