The AI Apocalypse Already Happened (And What You Can Do About It) - Mahon McCann

Mahon McCann argues that the real AI apocalypse already happened when social media and platform algorithms took over human judgment, reshaping what we see, think, and do through an attention economy that quietly downgrades our humanity.This lecture was given on April 11th, 2026, at University of Maynooth.Apply for the Thomistic Institute Study Abroad program by August 1, 2026. To learn more, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/study-abroad. About the Speaker:Mahon McCann is an Irish philosophy lecturer and PhD researcher based in Dublin. He holds a BA in Philosophy & Economics from University College Dublin and an MA in English from Queen’s University Belfast. In 2022, he was awarded the DCU School of Theology, Philosophy, and Music Scholarship for his research on the attention economy, particularly how social media companies' commodification of user attention shapes their moral character. His academic research is at the intersection of modern cognitive science, ancient virtue ethics and transformative technologies. Outside of academia, he is involved in public philosophy communication and hosts a popular podcast, which has ranked in the top ten for self-improvement and education in Ireland, on the meaning crisis in the West.Keywords: AI apocalypse, attention economy, social media, algorithms, human judgment, cognitive decline, human agency, digital ethics, platform power, technological formation