What Is AI Realism?

Kevin Roose says AI realism, Casey Newton's phrase, is the stance of people who are resigned to AI or excited that it is not going away. They are curious, interested, and maybe a little scared, and the reaction to the fear is to understand the technology instead of looking away. That is the audience Machine Gods is looking for.

The show is not saying AI is amazing and that an AI utopia is coming. It is also not saying the technology is fake, will disappear on its own, and so needs no regulation and no worry. For a while, Roose says, there was a lot of demand for that kind of cope: this is not happening, you do not have to pay attention, it sucks, it is hurting the environment. He still sees a lot of that on YouTube, and he calls Reddit very anti-AI. He thinks most people, or at least a plurality, now sit with resignation or excitement instead.

They felt the shift while making Hard Fork. A Claude Code walkthrough, half an hour of building a website, filmed and posted, did great. The comments came from people who hated AI, and there was still clear demand from people who just wanted to know what was going on.