DeepSeek, the Chinese AI, made headlines after it caused a crash of US tech stocks. It also led to a spate of jokes. One popular meme was this:
"I can’t believe ChatGPT lost its job to AI"
That’s a bit funny, even if it’s not true. But for many people, this is a real fear.
FOBO
I came across the acronym "FOBO" in a reference to the talks at the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos.
It was a new acronym for me, so I googled it. It can mean two different things. In the Davos context, it refers to Fear of Becoming Obsolete.
We’re all familiar with this fear. Even before AI, tech professionals have always worried that their skills may become outdated. New languages, new frameworks, new technologies. It’s impossible to keep up. Add AI into the mix, and the fear doubles.
A different FOBO
The other meaning of FOBO is Fear of Better Options. I found even more search results for this.
This is when you are so overwhelmed by the available choices, that you can’t make a decision. Instead you constantly worry that there might be a better option. Like novices who can’t decide which programming language to learn.
I suppose you could get double FOBO. You can be afraid of becoming obsolete and overwhelmed by the different recommendations to prevent that.
So many fears
Out of curiousity, I asked Copilot about other acronyms relating to fear. It came up with these:
- FODA – Fear of Doing Anything.
- FOGI – Fear of Getting Involved.
- FOJI – Fear of Joining In (or: Fear of Judgment or Inadequacy).
- FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.
- FORO – Fear of Running Out. (Remember the great toilet paper rush of 2020?)
- FOTT – Fear of Trying Things.
And for those in the tech world, Copilot provided a few more:
- FOBI – Fear of Being Insecure.
- FAANG – Fear of Algorithms and New Generations.
Hmm. Without AI, I only found FOMO, FOBO and FORO. When I challenged Copilot on one of its suggestions, I got this response:
"I apologize for the confusion! It appears there was a mistake. FOGT doesn’t actually stand for "Fear of Getting Hacked." I must have had a typo in my earlier response."
AI typos aside, it’s easy to think up more acronyms like those. Try FOP – Fear of Purple / Pants / People / Politics. Or anything else that starts with P.
We can’t just be scared
What about acronyms that are not about fear? JOMO, or "Joy of Missing Out", is the opposite of FOMO. It’s for those of us who enjoy being alone at home (preferably with chocolate and a good book).
JOMO is a real acronym. I asked Copilot for acronyms starting with "joy", that relate to technology. There aren’t any, so it invented some. Like JOYDIGI – the Joy of Digital Innovation Growth Initiatives. I don’t think that is going to catch on anytime soon.
This seems like an area where we need to work on our terminology. And while you think about that, try doing a RAK – Random Act of Kindness.
Do you have any positive acronyms to share? I’d love to hear them.