The article argues that Fear Factory’s 1998 album Obsolete anticipated contemporary anxieties about artificial intelligence, surveillance and automation. Its author connects the album’s human-versus-machine themes to the growing use of AI in everyday life and creative industries, presenting the record as an especially relevant example of industrial metal’s longstanding distrust of technological power.

The piece criticises AI-generated music, artwork and promotional material within metal, while noting that the genre has often explored similar fears through dystopian themes. It places Fear Factory alongside industrial and metal acts such as Godflesh, Ministry, Pitchshifter, Voivod, Queensrÿche and Judas Priest, whose music used technology sonically and lyrically to portray an oppressive future.