Panic! At the AI Apoc@lyp$e... Seemingly Unrelated S2E6 w/Franklin Johnstone Didymus

There are so many chicken little's these days decrying the downfall of man at the hands of Large Language Models. There are also, a lot of grifters taking advantage of that panic to line their wallets or just feel alive if only for a moment. Which is why we are here to fight that misinformation and identify the Seemingly Unrelated truths behind the myths and fears around artificial intelligence. Joining us this week is a guest host for the first time. They are a researcher into health's role in homelessness prevention as well as a veteran front line mental health nurse from the Covid-19 pandemic it is Franklin Johnstone Didymus! Alongside Frank, we will tackle the big questions like: Is the uncanny valley real, or just ableist nonsense? Was General Ned Ludd the figment of the polices' imagination? Is the Terminator less scary than the second coming of Christ? And of course...do people stop fearing AI the minute they realize they want to have sex with it? These questions and the unusual feelings everyone has for Spirit the horse this week on Seemingly Unrelated! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Seemingly Unrelated is a podcast all about exploring how everyday things connect to major movements in history, politics and culture. Episodes drop every other week so subscribe to listen to more.🎵 Subscribe to the audio only version on: https://shows.acast.com/seemingly-unrelated 📽️ Find the videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SeeminglyUnrelatedPod 🎰 Want even more Seemingly Unrelated content? Get bonus episodes for as little as $2/month as well as the list of sources for this episode (free) on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SeeminglyUnrelatedFollow us on the socials SubstackInstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedIn Bibliography (so you know we did the research):The National Archives, “The National Archives - Homepage,” text, The National Archives (blog) (The National Archives), accessed July 7, 2025, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/why-did-the-luddites-protest/; Tyler J. Burleigh and Jordan R. Schoenherr, “A Reappraisal of the Uncanny Valley: Categorical Perception or Frequency-Based Sensitization?,” Frontiers in Psychology 5 (January 21, 2015), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01488; Richard Conniff, “What the Luddites Really Fought Against,” Smithsonian Magazine, accessed July 7, 2025, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/; Clarke Garrett, Introduction: Historians and the Millennium (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_monograph/chapter/2391138; Boyoung Kim, Ewart de Visser, and Elizabeth Phillips, “Two Uncanny Valleys: Re-Evaluating the Uncanny Valley across the Full Spectrum of Real-World Human-like Robots,” Computers in Human Behavior 135 (October 1, 2022): 107340, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107340; Masahiro Mori, “Does a Robot Have Buddhanature?,” Tricycle: The Buddhist Review (blog), March 21, 2023, https://tricycle.org/article/robot-buddhanature/; Annalee Newitz, “Is the ‘Uncanny Valley’ a Myth?,” Gizmodo (blog), September 3, 2013, https://gizmodo.com/is-the-uncanny-valley-a-myth-1239355550; Judith Wolfe and Judith Wolfe, Heidegger’s Eschatology: Theological Horizons in Martin Heidegger’s Early Work, Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); “A Brief History of AI: How We Got Here and Where We Are Going | University of Portsmouth,” accessed July 7, 2025, https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/blogs/developing-enhanced-technologies/a-brief-history-of-ai-how-we-got-here-and-where-we-are-going; “Alan Turing’s Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science on JSTOR,” accessed July 7, 2025, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26058180; “Artificial Intelligence (AI) Coined at Dartmouth | Dartmouth,” accessed July 7, 2025, https://home.dartmouth.edu/about/artificial-intelligence-ai-coined-dartmouth;“III. Realism, the Uncanny Valley and Stylistic Solutions · Designing Embodied Conversational Interface Agents,” accessed July 7, 2025, https://kathrynisabelle.com/; “Millenarianism,” CDAMM, accessed July 7, 2025, https://www.cdamm.org/articles/millenarianism; “‘Millennial Hopes and Fears: Great Britain, 1780-1960’ by Hugh Dunton,” accessed July 7, 2025, https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/auss/vol37/iss2/46/; “The History of AI - Everything You Need to Know,” Scottish AI Alliance, accessed July 7, 2025, https://www.scottishai.com/news/the-history-of-ai; “The History of the Uncanny Valley? — Crooked Timber,” accessed July 7, 2025, https://crookedtimber.org/2018/04/09/the-history-of-the-uncanny-valley/; “‘Writings of the Luddites’ by Kevin Binfield,” accessed July 7, 2025, https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/faculty/284/.