Why I Chose the Word “Manifesto”

Dread Manifesto is a Mouthful, I know ...

When I first started writing what eventually became the Dread Manifesto, I wasn’t trying to write a manifesto at all. I was trying to understand something much simpler, and much heavier.

I kept noticing the same phrase surfacing in search data: “anxiety about AI.” Not “fear of job loss” or “concern about automation”—anxiety. That word stopped me cold. Anxiety isn’t about machines. It’s about the erosion of self-worth, the quiet crisis of meaning that settles in when you realize something smarter, faster, and more tireless than you might render your contribution obsolete. It’s the feeling of standing on a shore watching something vast approach, knowing you can’t stop it, unsure whether you’ll survive the wave.

That question, “what happens to us when we’re surpassed by what we created?”, took me somewhere I didn’t expect. What I was writing stopped being analysis. It became a declaration. And that’s when the word manifesto became unavoidable.

The Word “Manifesto” Has Baggage

I know. I’ve heard the concern, especially from Christian readers who understandably hear echoes of the Communist Manifesto or, worse, the violent manifestos of lone actors with grievances and weapons. Others point to Silicon Valley’s strip-mining of the term in the 2010s, when every startup needed a manifesto as branding collateral, turning a word of conviction into corporate performance art.

All of that is true. The word carries weight it shouldn’t have to carry. I prayed about using it precisely because I knew what it would signal to some readers: that I was being reckless, ideological, or worse.

But the original meaning remains: a public declaration of belief. Not a committee report. Not a diagnostic framework. Not an optimized content strategy. A statement of what the author believes to be true, spoken plainly enough that it cannot be ignored or diluted.

That’s what this needed to be.

What a Manifesto Actually Is

Here’s what I’m not doing: I’m not writing a rallying cry. I’m not trying to build a movement or unite people under a banner. I’m not making an academic argument that needs peer review and footnotes.

I’m planting a flag in the ground.

A manifesto exists to make something undeniable. To put language to what people feel but can’t articulate. To create a reference point—a marker in the landscape—so that when people encounter AI systems making decisions about their lives, they have words for the unease they’re feeling. Even if they reject everything I’m saying, they can’t quite unsee it once it’s been named.

That’s the function. The point isn’t agreement. The point is that once you’ve read it, you can’t passively accept AI adoption the same way anymore. You might disagree with my conclusions, but you’ll be forced to reckon with the questions: Who should have authority over human life? What are we actually surrendering when we hand judgment to algorithms? What happens to human meaning when we become unnecessary?

A manifesto disrupts passive acceptance. It forces a reckoning. That’s why this needed to be one.

I Didn’t Choose the Word Lightly

I wrestled with this choice. I tried softer alternatives. “Essay.” “Reflection.” “Framework.” None of them fit. They all felt like ways to avoid saying what needed saying, like diplomatic language that would let people nod along without actually changing how they think.

I prayed about it because I knew this word would trouble people, especially those in my own faith community. I brought it before God and asked whether I was being reckless or faithful. The answer I received wasn’t comfort. It was clarity.

There’s a reason prophets didn’t write position papers. There’s a reason watchmen don’t convene committees before sounding the alarm. When you see danger approaching you don’t whisper. You don’t equivocate. You speak plainly, even if your voice shakes, even if people accuse you of being extreme.

That’s what this moment requires.

Because this project is not neutral. It doesn’t present “perspectives” for your consideration. It makes claims. It names something many people feel but haven’t been able to articulate: that we are handing authority over human life to something profoundly alien, and we’re doing it with alarming passivity, as if the inevitability of the technology absolves us of responsibility for what we do with it.

I consider myself a watchman on the wall. That’s not a romantic self-image, it’s a burden. A watchman’s job is to see what’s coming and sound the alarm, whether people want to hear it or not. The word manifesto carries the weight this subject deserves because the danger is real, the hour is late, and a failure of nerve now would be a betrayal of the calling.

To choose a gentler word would be to pretend the issue is less urgent than it is. It would be spiritual cowardice dressed up as prudence.

What I Want Readers to Walk Away With

At its core, the Dread Manifesto confronts two questions most people would prefer to avoid.

First: We are outsourcing human judgment, including moral, ethical, existential judgment, to systems that possess no conscience, no accountability, no stake in human flourishing. We are doing this quietly, incrementally, in the name of efficiency and scale. What are we surrendering when we do this? And what do we imagine we’re gaining?

Second: If we believe machines are unfit to govern human life, then who is fit? What makes human judgment legitimate? What gives us the right to shape our own future, especially when we’ve made such a mess of it historically? This is not a technical question. It’s theological. Philosophical. It cuts to the bone of what we believe about ourselves.

These questions don’t get answered by better algorithms or more thoughtful AI policy. They require us to reckon with what we actually believe about human nature, moral authority, and the ground of meaning itself.

I’m not trying to answer these questions for you. I’m trying to make them impossible to ignore.

This Was a Journey—Not a Branding Exercise

I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to write a manifesto. I set out to understand why the word “anxiety” kept appearing in connection with AI. What emerged over months of research and reflection surprised me and changed the shape of the project entirely.

The deeper I went, the clearer it became: this anxiety isn’t about technology. It’s about obsolescence. It’s about the creeping suspicion that we might not be necessary anymore. That our judgment, our creativity, our capacity for meaning-making could all be replicated and exceeded by something we built. That’s not a fear of machines. That’s existential terror.

And that realization shifted everything. The project stopped being commentary and became confrontation, not aimed at technology, but at ourselves. At our assumptions. At our passivity. At our willingness to trade agency for convenience, meaning for efficiency, sovereignty for comfort.

Why I’m Willing to Own the Word

Yes, I chose a controversial word. I understand why it troubles people—it should. The word has been weaponized and cheapened. But I chose it anyway because this moment demands more than careful phrasing and academic distance.

Silence is easier than declaration. Nuance is safer than clarity. But whispering about civilizational shifts has never stopped one. And treating existential questions like they’re just another topic for polite discourse is a form of surrender.

You don’t write a manifesto because it’s fashionable or strategic. You write one because something needs to be said plainly, publicly, and without apology, even if it makes people uncomfortable. Especially if it makes people uncomfortable.

The word manifesto signals what this is: not a conversation starter, but a line drawn. Not an invitation to debate, but a challenge to see clearly. Not a rallying cry, but a flag planted in territory most people would rather not examine.

That’s why I chose the word.

And that’s why I’m standing behind it.