Five States of AI Grief

Bratton's typology of mainstream AI discourse, borrowed from Kübler-Ross: AI Denial, AI Anger, AI Bargaining, AI Depression, AI Acceptance. The premise is that AI is a Copernican trauma, "a long-standing and comfortable human self-image destabilized faster than the implications of the destabilization can be psychologically absorbed," which elicits a regular sequence of responses legible in criticism, activism, and policy. None is wholly irrational or adequate, and all are expected to give way to something else, which the Noema essay calls "post-grief." Began as a side joke in the Cognitive Infrastructures talk, became a June 2024 Noema essay and a research-statement sidebar, and is entry 45 of Accept All Cookies. The book and the sidebar say "States"; the essay says "Stages."