The Blind Worship of AI
False prophets lead to deception and destruction
“Mammon led them on —
Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
In vision beatific.”
— John Milton, 1667 (Paradise Lost)
The creed of our time is not found in the synagogues or the cathedrals, not in the Qur’an or the Torah or the Book of Common Prayer, but in the prospectuses of Silicon Valley, where the sacrament of innovation is performed at the altar of Mammon.
Once, priests whispered the divine mysteries in Latin; now, engineers chant in Python. And if Mammon has need of a new prophet, it is found in the algorithm, that formless and faceless deity that promises salvation by computation.
AI has become the latest and most resplendent idol, offered to us as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, capable of solving all our ills pr…
