Why New Tools Always Scare Us — Until They Don’t
This piece first appeared on Substack. I republish it here voluntarily — not as repetition, but as trace; a place where words can rest after their first flight. Each entry in this log forms part of an ongoing reflection on memory, awareness, and connection. 👉🏻 rftjon.substack.com
Intro
In recent months, headlines have claimed that technologies—video games, social media, or even AI chatbots—can cause tragic outcomes, including suicide. Families, lawyers, and commentators often point the finger at platforms or algorithms, as if these alone carried the weight of human decisions.
This narrative is powerful because it offers an easy explanation. It relieves us from the painful complexity of human suffering. But does it truly make sense? Common sense, which has guided people for generations, tells us something different: responsibility rests with the individual. Tools can influence, yes. Words can sting, yes. But no screen, no machine, no line of code can override the core fact that each of us remains responsible for what we decide to do with our own life.
Blaming technology risks creating a culture of excuses. Instead of confronting the real struggles—mental health challenges, social isolation, family conflicts, or the difficult business of living—we outsource guilt to companies, courts, or regulators. A court ruling cannot erase despair. A lawsuit cannot undo grief. And banning a platform will not magically protect us from life’s hardest moments.
This is not to say that compassion should be abandoned. Families who lose a child, or anyone who suffers, deserve empathy and understanding. But compassion should not be confused with blame-shifting. Grief does not transform tools into culprits. A chatbot cannot carry the moral weight of a human decision.
The Pattern of Fear: Every Great Invention Meets Resistance
Whenever a new technology appears, it almost always sparks suspicion. People imagine the worst before they experience the good. History gives us countless examples:
· – The First Trains: When the first railways were built in the 19th century, doctors warned that passengers might suffocate if trains traveled faster than 30 kilometers per hour. Farmers feared their cows would stop giving milk. Some politicians argued rail travel would destroy society’s moral fabric. Yet railways went on to shrink distances, fuel economies, and connect human beings in ways never imagined.
· – The Writing Pen: When mass-produced steel pens and fountain pens appeared in the 19th century, critics claimed handwriting would decline and students would become lazy. Earlier, even the printing press had been denounced by some as a dangerous tool that would spread heresy and weaken memory. Today, nobody questions the value of writing tools; they empowered literacy, creativity, and communication.
· – Electricity: At its birth, electricity was seen as terrifying and unnatural. Some cities resisted installing electric lights, fearing fires or health hazards. Even the first elevators were thought unsafe and immoral—until safety brakes and standards proved otherwise. Now, electricity is so ordinary that we cannot imagine modern life without it.
· – The Telephone: When Alexander Graham Bell introduced the telephone, many dismissed it as a toy. Some worried it would ruin face-to-face conversation. Others thought it would spread false rumors at lightning speed. Yet the telephone became the backbone of global communication and commerce.
· – The Personal Computer: In the 1970s and 1980s, people worried that computers would kill jobs, ruin children’s brains, or create antisocial isolation. Yet PCs opened doors to productivity, knowledge, and connectivity on a scale never before seen.
The pattern is striking. Each invention triggered fear before trust, panic before progress. The human imagination is quick to picture threats but slower to recognize opportunities.
Influence vs. Responsibility
Consider video games: for decades, critics claimed violent games would create violent youth. Yet millions played without turning to violence. Social media, too, has been accused of being the root of depression and polarization. But again, while influence exists, not every user collapses under its weight. The difference lies in the individual—the choices, the context, the resilience that belongs to human beings alone.
AI now steps into the same historical script. Some say it will destroy creativity, displace all jobs, or corrupt morality. Others predict catastrophe: machines plotting against humanity. The fears echo those once raised against trains, electricity, or the telephone. But common sense suggests a different lens: tools are neutral until human beings decide how to use them.
If a young person turns to a chatbot in a moment of despair, does that make the AI responsible for the outcome? Or does it remind us, instead, that human beings in crisis need real human support, not virtual conversations? The answer seems clear. Technology cannot replace community, friendship, family, or therapy. Shifting the burden onto machines distracts from the deeper work society needs to do: building stronger human bonds and taking mental health seriously.
Compassion Without Blame
Compassion demands that we listen, support, and help those who suffer. But accountability belongs to individuals, not to tools. Without that clarity, we risk raising a generation who see themselves as passengers, never drivers, of their own lives.
Our grandparents knew well: life is difficult, choices are ours, and responsibility—however heavy—cannot be delegated to machines. The great inventions of history prove this lesson. They all arrived with fear, but in the end they became instruments of freedom, progress, and possibility. What mattered was not the tool itself, but the responsibility with which humans wielded it.
The Timeless Lesson
In the end, responsibility is not old-fashioned, nor harsh—it is liberating. To accept that our choices are ours alone is to accept that we are capable of shaping our destiny, even against great odds. Technology will evolve. Tools will change. But the essence of human freedom and responsibility remains timeless.
The first train, the first pen, the first spark of electricity—all seemed frightening at the start. AI belongs in that same lineage. It can frighten us, yes. But it also offers the chance to extend human creativity, solve problems, and enrich life. The key is not to fear the tool but to use it wisely, with common sense and with responsibility.
_______________________
Robert F. Tjón, August 2025
