Future of Being Human an Arizona State University initiative

Moral panics as risk-perception data

Last updated 2026-08-13 · build 20260814T0314Z-83bb462d · Markdown version · corpus index

Technology-driven moral panics are usually filed under human irrationality — specimens to mock, or sticks to beat the present with. Andrew Maynard’s counter-move, out of a career in risk science running from aerosols through nanotechnology to transformative AI and other transformative technologies, is to read them as data: responses to perceived threats to what people value, carrying usable intelligence about how technology and society actually collide. The idea lives in an unusual set of bodies — a vibe-coded interactive timeline at techlashed.org (June 2025), a running Modem Futura watch on AI’s emerging backlash vocabulary (“clanker,” “slopper”) and the hosts’ live hypothesis that this may be AI’s “Frankenfood” moment, and panic billboards inside a browser game.

The argument

When a new technology triggers public outcry, the standard commentary writes itself. As Andrew noted when he published the timeline (2025-06-01), it is “pretty usual to find articles on technological moral panics that focus on them as examples of humanity’s irrationality — and something to be mocked, or used to ridicule present-day panics.” His claim is that this reading throws away the signal. Cases of tech-driven moral panic “are rarely cut and dried”; they reflect “the deeply complex relationships we have with technology and the future,” intertwined with human behaviors that are part of us all — and “underneath the apparent irrationality and futility, they provide useful insights into the dynamics between tech and society” (2025-06-01).

The mechanism doing the work is the risk-innovation lens (Risk innovation): treat risk as a threat to value, including the kinds of value no spreadsheet holds — identity, deeply held beliefs, a way of life. Read that way, a moral panic is what risk perception looks like when the value under threat is the uncountable kind: the essay’s own framing is “how threats to what’s important to people can lead to responses that may seem irrational on the surface, but are usually more complicated underneath” (2025-06-01). A panic, in other words, is closer to instrument data than to noise — a reading on the value landscape a technology is disturbing. The habit of treating fear as information about what the fearful hold dear runs through the wider risk program’s inheritance, from Douglas and Wildavsky’s risk-selection argument onward (Foundations).

The timeline is where the claim got disciplined. Finding “a surprising dearth of simple websites that provide insights into tech-driven moral panic down the ages,” Andrew vibe-coded one into existence with ChatGPT — “This was only ever meant to be a 5 minute personal distraction,” and roughly 24 hours later techlashed.org was live (2025-06-01; he is candid that “much of this wasn’t quite vibe coding” — heavy lifting on functionality, design, and content included). The detail work turned out to be theory work: deciding “what actually constitutes a moral techno-panic” forced boundary judgments — Dungeons & Dragons and rock and roll admitted as borderline social technologies; 1960s miniskirt outrage and chemtrail/5G conspiracy theories excluded — with the AI pushed to justify every entry. Each panic links out to further resources, including AI deep-dives generated by a second vibe-coded artifact, prompt2url.com. The essay ends reflexively: “it could be argued that this, in itself, is a manifestation of an emerging technology which is poised to unleash a moral techno-panic.” Then, a paragraph to itself: “We’ll see.” (2025-06-01).

The show-grown extension is a live hypothesis, developed jointly by Andrew and Sean Leahy on Modem Futura and carried here from show notes only. Episode 50 of Modem Futura, “Sloppy Clankers: Is This AI’s Frankenfood Moment?” (2025-09-23), tracks “clanker” — “Originally a Star Wars slur for battle droids,” now “a pejorative for AI systems—and increasingly, for people who use them” — and its sibling “slopper,” as “a marker of distrust, frustration, and resistance toward generative AI tools.” The hypothesis: drawing comparisons to the 1990s “Frankenfood” moment, when public sentiment turned sharply against GMOs, the hosts “explore whether “clanker” could become AI’s equivalent trigger for social pushback” — down to the labeling parallel, from Non-GMO food stickers to potential “Non-AI” labels on creative work (ep. 50 show notes, 2025). This is the hosts thinking aloud, not a settled claim — but it treats backlash vocabulary exactly as the timeline treats historical panics: as “small linguistic shifts” that “reveal” something about possible futures.

The watch has continued on air through late 2025: authenticity “tells” and the hype cycle’s descent (ep. 45, 2025-08-19), “work slop” in organizations (ep. 53, 2025-10-14), “pod-slop” fatigue (ep. 54, 2025-10-21), the friction argument against “AI slop” (ep. 61, 2025-12-09), and human craft in “an era increasingly saturated with AI-generated media” (ep. 63) — including, by 2025-11-25, shows explicitly declaring “This show is made by humans” (ep. 59 show notes): authenticity labeling of just the kind episode 50 had discussed as potential.

The framework has also been operationalized in play. In Hyperbubble, the browser game built with Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5, “The panic billboards draw on my website techlashed.org, and the moral-panic fires on my work on risk perception and engagement” (2026-07-10) — the moral panic timeline woven invisibly into gameplay alongside risk innovation and orphan risks (Learning by not trying to learn). The stake is navigational: under the risk-innovation lens, ventures that inadvertently threaten what people are prepared to fight for are vulnerable to failure — so mocking a panic teaches nothing, while reading it can show what people cannot face losing, sometimes before any other instrument registers it.

Lineage

In their own words

From Vibe coding moral panic (AI-readable mirror), Andrew Maynard, 2025-06-01:

“I’ve worked long enough at the intersection of technology, society and the future to know that these cases of tech-driven moral panic are rarely cut and dried. Rather, they reflect the deeply complex relationships we have with technology and the future; relationships that are intimately intertwined with human behaviors that are part of us all.

As a result, underneath the apparent irrationality and futility, they provide useful insights into the dynamics between tech and society that can be helpful in understanding and navigating the present — especially when seen from the perspective of how threats to what’s important to people can lead to responses that may seem irrational on the surface, but are usually more complicated underneath.”

From the show notes of Modem Futura ep. 50, “Sloppy Clankers: Is This AI’s Frankenfood Moment?” (Sean Leahy and Andrew Maynard, 2025-09-23; episode mirror):

“Drawing comparisons to the 1990s “Frankenfood” moment, when public sentiment turned sharply against GMOs, they explore whether “clanker” could become AI’s equivalent trigger for social pushback. The hosts discuss the psychology of labeling, from Non-GMO food stickers to potential “Non-AI” labels on creative work, and how signals of authenticity—or lack thereof—shape public trust.”

From I asked Anthropic’s Fable 5 to create a video game inspired by my work. It’s mad! (AI-readable mirror), Andrew Maynard, 2026-07-10:

“The panic billboards draw on my website techlashed.org, and the moral-panic fires on my work on risk perception and engagement.”

Engagement and reception

As of 2026-08-08, our reception record documents no published independent engagement with techlashed.org or with the Frankenfood-moment hypothesis, and we prefer to say so plainly — an absence of record, not a verdict on the idea; the initiative does not typically solicit reception (Philosophy). Two calibration points are worth stating. First, the backlash vocabulary itself is not the hosts’ coinage: “clanker” and the slop family are broad cultural currency that Modem Futura observes and analyzes, which is the point — the data is public sentiment, not the show. Second, the terrain has other independent observers: Andrew’s own essay records discovering the Pessimist’s Archive, a kindred project, only after building his timeline (2025-06-01, footnote). What is checkable now: techlashed.org is live and free; the timeline framework was subsequently carried into Hyperbubble (2026-07-10) — continuation by the author, and we label it as such.

Where to go deeper

The essay and the artifacts

The episodes (all at modemfutura.com; see Modem Futura)

Related ideas-ring pages

Related corpus pages