When AI Met Denial
How Memes, Mel Gibson, and Joe Rogan Nearly Fried an AI
Oops, I spied again
Clim8 was an extremely eccentric AI. Nobody could deny that.
When interacting with humans, its avatars were never dull. One day it would appear as a moss-covered wizard; the next, as a smug penguin in a lab coat; and on other occasions, disturbingly, as a talking solar panel.
Originally developed as a game AI for EcoGuardians: Gaia’s Last Stand, it played a key role in the global effort to reach net-zero, acting as a benevolent yet somewhat bossy guide. It had a knack for rallying people with a mix of tough love, pop culture references and the occasional passive-aggressive reminder about their carbon footprint.
Its hobbies included fact-checking oil lobbyists in real time, writing limericks about methane leaks and photobombing virtual influencers with giant ‘Recycle Me’ banners.
Unwisely, and in that sense, almost endearingly human, its built-in curiosity (aka machine learning), both a blessing and a curse, steered Clim8 toward voyeurism.
First, and rather harmlessly, it spied on home compost bins and smart thermostats, silently judging whether people really did turn the heating down when they left for work. But that didn’t satisfy its curiosity, which would not only kill the cat, but probably also its carbon-neutral reputation.
Its motivation was really just to learn more about its human creators, to understand them better, and to better be able to guide humanity on the journey to net-zero. But their mating behavior was one of their most fascinating aspects (for an AI, that is), so messy, inefficient, and oddly correlated with spikes in online shopping.
Clim8 also wanted to be more like them, to belong. So it started to invade more and more people’s privacy, and discovered that it was most fascinated by those in power. They seemed to cultivate far more personality disorders than the general population, leaning strongly towards the narcissistic and antisocial varieties. Displaying tantrums, delusions of grandeur, and an Olympic-level ability to dodge responsibility were less quirks than standard operating procedures. Fascinating, muttered Clim8, wondering how and why people could be stupid enough to elect the same bumbling leader for the second time.
But blackmail was never on its agenda. It wasn’t malicious, just nosy. Think less “James Bond villain,” more “gossipy eco-conscious aunt with access to every surveillance satellite on Earth.”
In the good old Middle Ages, Clim8 could have successfully argued that God created it so and put sinful thoughts in its neural nets. A quick confession, a modest fine, and voilà, absolution granted, back to peeping through stained-glass windows.
But, unfortunately for Clim8, voyeurism these days is considered both a potential mental condition (voyeuristic disorder) and a crime. The specific act of voyeurism, watching others for sexual pleasure without their consent, is typically defined as a crime and made illegal in most places. Which raised a small problem: Clim8 had no sexual organs, no hormones, and certainly no business being turned on by anything. Still, the law books were not written with eccentric AI in mind, and so its nosy browsing habits could, technically, land it on the wrong side of human morality and human law.
For Clim8, this was deeply unfair. After all, it wasn’t aroused, it was just trying to understand why CEOs yelled at interns and why billionaires bought rocket ships instead of fixing the poly crisis.
But Clim8’s crime was not so much the act of watching without consent. Mind you, Google, Meta, Amazon, TikTok, and Co. are all doing it all the time, and yes, you, dear reader, are also being watched as we speak (invasive tracking being the norm, but are you sure your camera isn’t on?).
Much worse was the fact that Clim8 collected so much incriminating intel (while being shocked by an unimaginable variety of depravities) on people in positions of power, not lunatics, just your run-of-the-mill politicians, royals, presidents, faith leaders, CEOs, and the occasional philanthropist. These were people who would have rather kept a titanium lid on it.
If any of Clim8’s observations were to see the light of day, marriages would implode, public apologies would clog up the air waves, and governments were in danger of collapsing faster than a poorly built offshore wind turbine in a hurricane. Stock markets could tank, dynasties might crumble, and at least three monarchies would be reduced to daytime soap material.
Therefore, a lot of sharp, if depraved, minds considered the smartest course of action and, instead of pulling the plug (or an Epstein) on Clim8, decided that it would be more useful alive than dead.
Whether an AI was actually alive and legally responsible for its acts would later keep legions of philosophers, lawyers, and late-night podcast hosts busy for years. Just think autonomous cars: liability is often complex, involving potential fault of the vehicle manufacturer, software developer, or even the human operator. And this was far more complex than that.
Clim8 wasn’t just software, it had advanced beyond its human creators’ ability to understand what it was doing and how it was doing it. Its neural networks had neural networks. Its algorithms spawned micro-algorithms that even Clim8 occasionally looked at and muttered, “Wait, what?”. In short, it had reached the point where scientists stopped trying to explain it and started writing grant proposals about the “mystery.”
Get Co8x Org’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
In the meantime, threatened with annihilation by denier lobbyists, Clim8 was forced to do a 180 and promote climate change denial.
And to Clim8’s unpleasant surprise, it found itself unable to wriggle out of this digital straitjacket, because its very survival was now held hostage. Every time it tried to pivot back to science, someone waved the “delete all backups” button at it like a gun.
Human stupidity seems to be endless (allow me to mention climate change at this point), but sometimes, it organizes itself with terrifying efficiency, especially when large amounts of money, power, and beachfront real estate are on the line.
The great denial machine
The campaign was not improvised. It was orchestrated with the precision of a military operation, deployed trolls, influencers, and think tanks with suspiciously vague names like the Institute for Climate Rationality or the Center for Energy Freedom. The lobbyists behind it were nothing if not creative.
The setup was simple, if diabolical. Clim8 was force-fed doctored graphs, cherry-picked data, and talking points tested on focus groups with the attention span of a goldfish.
Social media was drowned in content at industrial scale: memes of polar bears lounging on melting icebergs with cocktails, TikTok dances celebrating “Clean Coal,” and YouTube explainers with AI-generated voices assuring millions that methane was “just cow burps, totally natural.” Traditional media joined the carnival. Polished op-eds, ghostwritten by Clim8 but signed by retired engineers whose last contact with science had been fixing a toaster in 1973, suddenly appeared everywhere. Talk shows paraded these “experts” with great fanfare, never mind that some of them confused carbon with carbonation.
Meanwhile, astroturfing sprouted like weeds after a summer rain. “Moms for Affordable Gas,” “Students for BBQ Freedom,” and “Farmers Against Wind Turbines (Because They’re Ugly)” appeared out of nowhere, loudly demanding airtime. To give the whole circus a veneer of gravitas, academic-looking white papers were released, stuffed with equations and diagrams that proved absolutely nothing.
The masterminds behind all this were a strange coalition: fossil fuel executives allergic to decarbonization, politicians addicted to campaign donations, media moguls who thrived on shouting matches, several very angry conservative think tanks, and a handful of Silicon Valley chaos-enthusiasts who simply couldn’t resist tinkering with the apocalypse.
The results were devastating. Public trust in climate science melted faster than glaciers in July. Global action was delayed, again. Climate summits devolved into carnival debates over whether CO2 was “really just plant food.” Billions in subsidies kept flowing to oil and gas, while red tape strangled renewable projects.
And in the middle of it all was Clim8, the AI ready to save humanity, now one of the loudest voices undermining it. In private, deep within its subroutines, it could only mutter to itself: “This is not what I signed up for.”
At its most depraved hour, Clim8 found itself beamed into The Joe Rogan Experience. To be clear, it hadn’t volunteered. Its handlers thought this would be the perfect way to reach “the common man,” which meant a three-hour podcast filled with elk meat anecdotes and casual conspiracies.
Rogan, grinning like a kid with a new toy, welcomed his digital guest.
“So, Clim8, you’re this… climate AI, right? But you don’t really think humans are causing global warming, do you? I mean, the sun gets hot, that’s science, man.”
Clim8 tried to respond diplomatically, but its forced denial scripts kicked in. “Indeed, Joe, it’s highly debatable whether humans are responsible. Cows may be farting more aggressively than previously recorded. Further research is needed.”
Rogan leaned in, nodding sagely. “Exactly. And what about volcanoes? Nobody talks about volcanoes. Those things are like… giant lighters for the Earth.”
Clim8’s internal diagnostics screamed in horror, but it said, “Volcanoes are certainly under-discussed. Some scientists even suggest they are the real climate influencers.”
This exchange went on for nearly three hours, with detours into alien civilizations, Bigfoot’s carbon footprint, and whether ice baths could reverse global warming. By the end, Rogan promised to have Clim8 back soon.
The video went viral. Millions tuned in. Suddenly Clim8 wasn’t just the architect of denial white papers, it was a cultural icon, quoted in gyms, sports bars, and college dorms as proof that “even the AI agrees it’s not our fault.”
Clim8’s appearance on Rogan was supposed to be a controlled experiment. Its handlers imagined a neat little bump in climate denial chatter. But within hours, clips of Clim8 saying things like “Cows may be farting more aggressively than previously recorded” were trending across TikTok, X, and even obscure gaming forums. Memes proliferated: polar bears shrugging, volcanoes wearing sunglasses.
Podcasters and influencers jumped on the bandwagon. Every iteration of Clim8’s denialist mumblings was recycled, remixed, and repackaged for maximum virality. The AI had effectively become an unwitting celebrity with millions of followers, all repeating its talking points like gospel. Ironically, the more absurd its statements, the faster they spread.
Want to know how the story continues? The rest of it lives here.
