The little guy is all into Minecraft nowadays. One day he came home from school showing me a drawing of some green thing - “Papa, this is a Creeper, and he’s from Minecraft.” That was the beginning of the end. We now have T-shirts, books, LEGO, and keychains with creepers, Steve, spiders, zombies, and skeletons. So naturally, it was only a matter of time before he discovered the Game itself. We have a big screen and a PS5 here, so it was a prime experience for him to realize there’s an entire interactive world of Minecraft out there.

So we started building.
Simple things, weird things, ugly things, things with lava, things made of gold - all kinds of things. Eventually, we built our own house in there. Rooms, floors, little details. A digital version of "this is ours."

At some point, I googled what else there is to build. And of course, there are thousands of authors on YouTube showing their masterpieces. One of the first videos that popped up was a guy building a ballistic missile with a “nuclear” warhead. He pressed a button. It launched. And it worked - no village, no creepers, no spiders, just a huge crater.

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Give humans infinite creativity, limitless tools, and zero constraints… and one of the first things we build is a better way to destroy things. So, looking at this Minecraft example, you can pretty much imagine how AI will soon be used. And no, it won’t just be videos of Will Smith chewing spaghetti or Donald Trump depicted as Jesus Christ doctor. It may be much worse than that - and it’s our kids who will be growing up in that world.

It’s gotten so bad that even Massive Attack and Tom Waits came out of years-long slumbering and released something that feels as hopeless as this Minecraft-themed obituary for the human race.

Let’s end on a good note, though. It doesn’t have to be like that - and it’s on us to make things better. And you dads will need calories to change the world, so expect some solid recipes in the coming weeks.

I’ve also been working on a big update to the Dad Journal, which I’m planning to release right before Father’s Day.

Stay tuned. Stay strong.

Y.