Every day feels like it brings a round of new headlines breathlessly touting some fresh advancement in AI, developments that in turn promise to hasten the revolutionizing of industries, the creation and destruction of jobs, and maybe even redefine what it means to be human.
Days like today, though, make it really hard for me to get excited about the idea of some nebulous future. Specifically when the here and now is such an abject mess.
The “Liberation Day” tariffs are one reason. While the AI hype cycle continues to unfold, we have real-world economic policies set to add thousands of dollars to the average household’s yearly expenses. The latest round of Trump tariffs are another regressive tax, all but certain to raise prices on everything from cars to groceries while being pitched as some kind of long-term strategic maneuver.
Zooming out from there — well, where do you even start? Our nation’s basic infrastructure is crumbling. The cost of housing is hopelessly out of reach, and getting even more so, for first-time buyers. Social Security is basically a Ponzi scheme. Politics at the national level is basically performance art, while in cities like mine, an apathetic electorate allows activists and incoherent nutjobs to seize control of everything from school boards to City Hall.
In this country, ordinary people like me are taxed into oblivion, with levies on what we own, what we earn, and what we buy. The cost of health care can still bankrupt you in the blink of an eye, but please — keep telling me why I should be excited about giving billions more dollars to an AI company that can Ghibli-fy your cat Mittens so that it looks like the one from Kiki’s Delivery Service.
The contrast between the two worlds we’re simultaneously living in is so jarring. AI is supposed to be this great technological leap forward, an era-defining shift on par with the Industrial Revolution. But in the present, I and too many people like me are far more affected by the slow grind of bad governance — by the very real and immediate impacts of tariffs, deteriorating infrastructure, and policies that feel detached from the lives of ordinary people.
Maybe AI will, at some point, manage to fix some of the problems I’m complaining about. But until then, I’ll be over here, trying not to break an axle on a crater-sized highway pothole and wondering how much more expensive my next grocery run is going to be.
