AI as asbestos

“AI is the asbestos in the walls of our technological society, stuffed there with wild abandon by a finance sector and tech monopolists run amok. We will be excavating it for a generation or more.”

Cory Doctorow (2026)

Description and analysis

What is it?

Asbestos is a naturally occurring material that has historically been used, primarily in construction, due to its fire-resistance and strength. Exposure to asbestos fibres has been linked to health issues, including certain cancers. Many countries have implemented complete bans on asbestos, going as far back as the 1980s and as recently as 2022.

What does this metaphor suggest about AI?

Asbestos was initially viewed as being extremely useful and cost effective, though was later found to be harmful. Early texts describing asbestos refer to it as the “magic mineral”.

This metaphor draws comparisons between asbestos and generative AI, implying we are currently being subject to harms by AI that we aren’t yet aware of. There are also parallels between the mystical properties historically attributed to asbestos, and the way AI is sometimes spoken about in magical or even religious terms.

In the cases of both asbestos and AI, workers’ rights and protections have been central to discussions of regulation.

Where does the metaphor commonly appear?

The metaphor is a relatively recent one, gaining traction over the last decade. It has been used in AI critical circles, notably by tech activist Cory Doctorow, Warhammer designer Jervis Johnson, and in a 2025 open letter calling for the removal of AI from schools in Malden, a city in Massachusetts, US.

What does the metaphor highlight?

Comparing AI to asbestos highlights the dangers of embedding a seemingly helpful technology within infrastructure without understanding the long-term consequences. Asbestos is still used in some places, and regulation has been slow.

The metaphor reminds us that feelings of inevitability around a new technology aren’t unique to AI – society has had to rapidly adjust after learning asbestos (and cigarettes, fossil fuels etc.) are harmful. This breaks the pattern of narratives suggesting AI is a totally new phenomenon and presents an unforeseen paradigm shift, reframing it as just another challenge that can be overcome through regulation and societal change.

What does the metaphor hide?

Unlike asbestos, the potential harms of AI were known prior to becoming embedded in our everyday lives. Risks to humans from AI were discussed as far back as the 1950s, and whistleblowing, protesting, and resistance to AI and the big tech companies deploying them are well-established.

The metaphor also does not necessarily apply to non-generative forms of AI.

Whose interests does it tend to serve?

This metaphor is useful to AI critics, and anyone who wishes to see foundation AI models more strictly regulated, faster.

History

What are this metaphor’s origins (if known)? How has its use evolved over time?

‘The new asbestos’ has been used to describe Machine Learning/AI from as early as 2019 when Jonathan Zittrain used the metaphor at the 2019 precision medicine conference. It has also been used to describe data, but is mostly used for talking about modern AI systems. Cory Doctorow’s use of the metaphor is the most commonly cited instance, but can be found everywhere from open letters to academic articles to social media posts

Field

What field(s) does this metaphor tend to appear in?

Everyday, academic, journalism

Geographic source

If known, in which country or region did the metaphor first appear?

United States

Prevalence

Has this metaphor become a widely used term or it is niche?

Used in academic or specialist contexts only

Additional notes

References

 

More on metaphors and the framework used on this website: Making Sense of AI Metaphors: A Framework for Classification and Analysis

Author(s)

Who collaborated on this entry

Aphie Gover, Mel Ramasawmy, Kate West

Category

Family to which each AI metaphor belongs.

Impact

This methodology considers the following families or categories:

  • Essence: What is AI? Metaphors where AI is a thing or entity (i.e. tool, brain)
  • Operation: How does AI work? Metaphors that represent AI’s processes or mechanisms (i.e. stochastic parrot)
  • Relation: How do we relate to AI? Metaphors that frame the relationship between people and AI (i.e. assistant).
  • Function: What does AI do, or what is it used for? Metaphors describing the use made of AI (tutor, translator)
  • Impact: What consequences can AI have? Metaphors that frame AI’s effects, (threat, transformative engine).

Humanity attribution

Level of human-like characteristics and agency attributed to AI. This scale goes from no / minimal anthropomorphism, through to full anthropomorphism, and beyond to deification.

2. Low: infrastructure (library, database)

Other risks

What other risks can this metaphor carry?

Objectification

Examples of usage

Examples of where this metaphor was used

“…this moment with AI is remarkably like the moment when we were introduced to asbestos. Yes, it had some remarkably promising characteristics – fireproofing! – and had some real utility in science, research, and industrial applications. But a profit-driven industry bullied us into inserting it everywhere; into our homes and schools and public spaces, before we really understood the risks. This resulted in decades, if not centuries, of illness, injuries, deaths, and the astronomical financial burden of trying to remove the stuff.”

Malden schools administrator

“I think of machine learning kind of as asbestos. It turns out that it’s all over the place, even though at no point did you explicitly install it, and it has possibly some latent bad effects that you might regret later, after it’s already too hard to get it all out.”

Jonathan Zittrain

“We are soon going to have to come to grips with the fact that this shit is asbestos for the mind”

Shannon Vallor

Observatory articles
featuring this metaphor