AGI Fever: How a Tech Myth Turned into the Era's Biggest Conspiracy

The sensation people call 'feeling' AGI

There is a peculiar discourse around artificial general intelligence, or AGI, that reads less like engineering and more like evangelism. People talk about timelines—two years, five years, maybe next year—and about radical transformations: curing disease, solving climate change, and redefining what it means to be human. At the same time, the same set of believers warns of apocalypse and extinction. That combination of messianic promise and apocalyptic dread gives AGI a cultural charge beyond ordinary technologies.

Messianic promises and apocalyptic warnings

In hubs like Silicon Valley, AGI is often framed in near-mystical terms. Founders and researchers alternate between grand utopian visions and survivalist doom-saying. The rhetoric runs from claims of an era of abundant prosperity to warnings that misaligned superintelligence could threaten humanity. This rhetorical split—salvation on one hand and annihilation on the other—creates a potent narrative that attracts money, talent, and political attention.

From fringe idea to mainstream narrative

AGI was once a marginal concept associated with fringe researchers. A few decades ago it would get eye-rolls at conferences. Over time, conferences, books, and a handful of influential figures pushed the concept into the mainstream. Once prominent companies and major investors began to talk about AGI seriously, the idea gained legitimacy. Today it shapes corporate strategies and investment decisions, even when technical definitions remain vague.

The doomer and evangelist networks

A cluster of thinkers and organizations popularized existential-risk arguments about AGI, arguing that unchecked development could lead to catastrophe. Their warnings found receptive ears among wealthy investors and startup founders, who in some cases funded and institutionalized those concerns. Simultaneously, other leaders cast AGI as the key to an unprecedented era of human flourishing. This alliance of doomsayers, evangelists, and capital has been instrumental in normalizing AGI as the central story of the AI era.

Why AGI looks like a conspiracy in practice

Conspiracy theories need certain ingredients: a flexible narrative that survives failed predictions, a promised hidden truth, and a sense of salvation for believers. AGI often contains all three. The notion is slippery: no agreed definition, no proven method for building it, and a persistent claim that it is imminent. That slipperiness makes AGI difficult to falsify and allows believers to reinterpret setbacks as part of a larger unfolding plan.

The problem of definitions and evidence

People disagree on what AGI even means. Does it require humanlike general reasoning, physical embodiment, economic productivity, or something else entirely? That lack of clarity lets the argument shift: any advance can be cast as progress toward AGI, and any delay can be dismissed as a temporary hiccup. The result is a persistent conviction that AGI is inevitable despite scarce empirical evidence that it will be realized in the near term.

Real-world consequences: capital, policy, and priorities

Belief in imminent AGI has redirected enormous resources. Massive investments in compute, data centers, and specialized hardware are justified by the promise of an approaching breakthrough. Those investments come at the expense of near-term, tangible projects that could improve lives today. Policymakers can also be distracted: existential risk narratives may crowd out regulation or funding aimed at present-day harms such as bias, surveillance, and economic displacement.

The incentive to keep AGI on the horizon

There is a commercial logic to keeping AGI perpetually close but not here. If AGI is seen as within reach, companies can recruit talent, attract investment, and claim strategic importance. If it were declared already solved, the competitive and financial incentives would evaporate. That dynamic helps explain why some organizations consistently suggest AGI is just around the corner.

What this myth says about technology and belief

At its core, the AGI story is built on a particular faith: that intelligence can be engineered, scaled, and commodified. That faith substitutes a belief in technological salvation for confidence in human institutions and collective action. For many, AGI represents hope that an external force will fix what politics and policy have not. For others, it is a vehicle for power and control.

Looking forward: skepticism and accountability

Calling AGI a kind of conspiracy is not a denial of real progress in AI. Large language models and other advances are impressive and deserve careful study. But treating AGI as inevitable without clear definitions or evidence distorts priorities. Greater skepticism, clearer definitions, and accountability for how resources are allocated would help redirect talent and capital toward solvable problems while preserving legitimate inquiry into long-term risks.

A cultural mirror

AGI's story reveals more about our cultural hopes and fears than about an impending technological singularity. Whether AGI becomes real or fades as a dominant narrative, the phenomenon shows how tech myths can reshape industries, policy debates, and public imagination. We should scrutinize the stories we tell about technology as closely as we examine the technologies themselves.