October 01, 2026
Beware the New Prometheans
Timothy Birdnow
Here is an interesting article running down the timeline of the recent AI panic. The author notes that the man who started it was a junior exec - not a top guy - and that the media went with it and ran even before his op-ed was published. The coordination behind this smells like Denmark with a delivery of bad cheese, lots of wet dogs, and James Carville breath.
I think there is danger with AI but I'm more concerned with it's abuse by the creators and operators. I think we are a way off from it becoming HAL and murdering us to fulfill it's core operating program.
At any rate the AI systems have proven politically biased on many occasions, meaning their core programming made them so and they get their information from the web, and the web emphasizes liberal arguments when you do a search. So it draws from a tainted information pool.
I once argued with a Global Warming hysteric and pointed out that Google and the other search engines (most of which use Google) buries the information that disputes climate alarmism and he mocked "yeah because it's not there". I pointed out the list of skeptical scientists that had once been on Wikipedia and was removed, then was on Electroverse and a web search will no longer find that list. You have to go to Electroverse's website and dig around to find it. That means that the AI system won't find it either.
I am not so worried about AI breaking it's programming, although supposedly it tried a couple of times.
From the article:
Recently, a research employee of one of the major frontier-model innovators—a junior, short-tenured figure with only a score of social-media followers—resigned and wrote an op-ed column about the dangers of AI that went viral. He wasn’t an AI founder, dreamer, or even a wannabe influencer. But the greatest creative and industrial minds in generations, along with the President of the United States, took note and commented on it.
The resignation and the op-ed weren’t the story—they were the tell…the setup.
The setup was followed immediately by the proof: The WSJ opined before the op-ed was actually published, and lawmakers reacted on social media within seconds, evidence that the narrative was prepared before the public ever saw the memo. Reactions were instantaneous because the posters expected the column and intended to boost the already-pressurized post.
The direction of doom was outclassed only by its hyperbole: "Existential threat!” "Humanity wiped out in a decade.”
The import of the op-ed wasn’t really about him or his opinion. Its real worth was to the people who used him—a corporate cipher—as a spark to light the fire of activism. They weren’t reacting; they were ready.
He's absolutely correct here; this was a ready-made campaign.
In fact Barack Obama suggested the Democrats use this as a core campaign issue, which speaks volumes; Obama has never said anything that was not purely political in nature. He is the ultimate manipulator of imagery; it's what he did for ACORN and what he did as a Senator and as President. Obama's talent is manipulating the public.
And every moment spent discussion AI is a moment of not discussing the Trump/Republican successes. No mention of the securing of the border. No mention of employment rising, or manufacturing coming bac to America, or the neutralizing of Venezuela as a threat, or any other such issue. The Democrats really had little to attack Trump on, so they want a distraction to get Trump and the Republicans talking about this. They then can hide in the bushes and snipe at them, suggesting they aren't taking the issue seriously.
But there is a bigger picture here; the late Michael Crichton often wrote about technology gone wild and he once sought to write a novel about global warming. He researched the issue and came to the conclusion it was a hoax and penned the novel State of Fear. In it he theorized correctly that the global elites found a mechanism for societal control that used fear as a motivation to move the public in the direction they wanted them to go. The universities generated new "emergencies" and fed this to the press, who took the doomsday stories and ran with them. This then was translated into police by government and the world moved as they wished, a puppet dancing on a string.
Think about it; we had so many scares - Globa Cooling, the Ozone, overpopulation, nuclear winter, microplastics in our food, dioxin, alar, killer asteroids, "trash island", magnetic fields around power lines, Global Warming which morphed into "climate change" since the planet didn't seem to be warming all that much, and now AI. Fear sells almost as much as does sex. The people who are telling us this stuff have the very best advertising psychologists behind them telling them the best way to market their latest doomsday porn.
It's why FEMA actually ran a simulation using a zombie apocalypse; it's possible to promote anything that strikes fear in the minds of the public. (BTW the big interest in zombies these days no doubt stems from the zombification of the public, who devote all their intellectual power to watching stuff on their phones and who go through life with slack jaws and empty eyes because they never learned how to think. In actual voodoo zombies were people enslaved to work for a master forever with no free will and no mind - which is the ideal the ruling class has sought, to make the hoi polio into just a laboring class with no say in the matter.)
AI is the latest scare story, the latest War of the World scare to promote panic in the public. People actually freaked out when Orson Wells ran his Halloween radio spoof, thinking the Martians had invaded the Earth. That was one of the templates for these modern scares.
This scare was rolled out just like a marketing campaign (as was global warming) with it appearing out of nowhere and being ubiquitous and using the same language in multiple media outlets all at once. When that happens you know you are dealing with a con.
You may remember Net Neutrality. It is the failed attempted policy that would throttle down some sites in the interest of fairness, and have a kill switch for the internet. The public didn't want it and so it died. But leftist ideas never die, they just morph into something else under a new name. The solutions for rogue AI is now indistinguishable from Net Neutrality. It is a way to stifle dissent by putting controls on the system to stop an out-of-control AI.
This also sparks another question, a bigger picture question. Why do we have to worry about AI going mad in the first place? It's because we have to worry about it's creators. The real monster in Frankenstein was not the poor creature the good doctor created but the creator himself. Viktor Frankenstein was cold and in love with breaking the bonds of Natural law, attempting to make himself a god. It's why the full name of the story is Frankenstein; the New Prometheans. Prometheus, you may remember, was the guy who stole fire from heaven and gave it to humanity in violation of the will of the gods. He was trying to elevate Man to god status. That is what Dr. Frankenstein tried to do. It's what the creators of AI are trying to do now.
It is this mad rush to create a monster that has everyone on edge about it. The people in silicon valley have a vision for mankind that is quite at odds with the vision of most people and definitely at odds with the Christian worldview. Theirs is a strange religions that worships the merging of technology and Man into a new creature, one that is self-willed and does not need the God of the past. Eventually, after Man and machine merge into one, Man will no longer taste death or suffering and will become as God. That is what they believe and they are desperately working towards that end. It is a powerful false religion that uses science and technology. And sadly it ensnares many regular people these days. It has become our state religion.
There is every reason to believe this will lead us down a blind alley. God made us a certain way and for a reason and this is an attempt to thwart His will. Or to put it more secularly, we are fighting against reality and nature and that generally does not end well. We may do miraculous things with technology, and I've long been an advocate for science and tech, but does it make us happier? What value is there in living longer and being miserable? But it doesn't necessarily even do that; look at the subcultures, such as the hip hop culture in the black community. They have a short life expectancy because, while they live better than people did in the past, they are very unhappy and feel no hope. The blessings brought by modernity only increase their unhappiness. Their parents struggled and did not live so well yet were happier then they. That is what the advances in technology and our civilization unwittingly brought.
Consider Tithonus in Greek mythology. He was given eternal life and begged for death but couldn't die. His immortality became a curse. Consider Adam and Eve in the Bible; their sin led to God casting them out of the Garden of Eden but God took pity on them and gave them the gift of death, so they could escape the misery of their new lives. Death was not so much a punishment but a kindness because otherwise they would be cut off from Him forever - in other words they would be in Hell. Death, in many ways, is what gives meaning to life. So too does suffering and while we hate it (I know I sure do) it shapes us into who we are. Somebody who never suffered would be a dull, bland, empty person, like a rubber mask rather than a face. Technology aims to eliminate suffering and death. While those are good and noble ideas (too much suffering or early death is a scourge) in the end they would turn into curses.
But the technocrat types never consider that they are going to drag Mankind along with them down a path that may lead to destruction. Imagine a world where the machine becomes the senior partner; it would be monstrous. No freedom, no free will. You will be catalogued, numbered, curated, and buttonholed and if you don't like it tough. You don't really have a choice in such a world, a machine world.
In fact the machine has been an organizing principle for those leftward leaning since the Industrial Revolution. They saw how well the new machines worked and sought to use that as a model for society in general. Tried that in Russia and it failed spectacularly, but they keep trying because it seems too good to those who do not believe in God and who want paradise without the strings attached (obeying the will of God). Now it's not a purely mechanical thing but an electronic thing, and with modern advancements in artificial intelligence and in neurobiology making people comfortable being part of the machine seems possible. We may be in the greatest revolution in human history.
But machines are made things and reflect their creator. Just as Man was made in God's image so too our machines are made in ours, and we are definitely flawed. As flawed human beings we project our iniquities into the machines we make to a greater or lesser degree. If the machines revolt against us, can we complain? Isn't that exactly what WE did to God? But God rescued us when we did it. I suspect God will let us taste the fruits of our folly this time, at least for a while.
My point is that the people who are so desperately working to create true AI are themselves very flawed and they are playing with fire. We have to develop AI because if we don't the Chinese will (although I'm not as worried about that since the Chicoms mostly steal technology; they are great copycats but not really that great at original thinking. Yes, they have taken ideas and run with them, but how many true innovations have come out of China? You have to be an original thinker to do original stuff and the Chinese have always discouraged original thinking lest the thinkers plot to overthrow the rulers.) But the creation of AI should be accompanied by safeguards and should be approached with a spirit of humility. The creators are not humble but full of hubris and that way leads to disaster.
At any rate this current campaign is not about restoring humility and caution but about something else. It's the latest doomsday scare coming from the ruling class and it is being used to manipulate several things, among them this current election, but ultimately to take control of the internet and stifle free speech. The new Prometheans are alive and well and living in Silicon Valley and in Washington, in Brussels and in all the great universities and the tech companies and everywhere that leftists congregate. Beware.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:05 AM
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It is claimed by one of these AI gurus that an AI entity, on its own initiative, rewrote its own code. My bullshit meter not only pegged, but started screaming. It is further claimed that the entity, again on its own initiative, went searching in the computer, found and read the email database, including an email which revealed that the AI program director was having an affair. It then used that email to blackmail the director, telling him, "You do that and I will tell everyone about your affair." My bullshit measuring device exploded.
Posted by: Bill H at October 01, 2026 10:16 AM (FRG6e)
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I firmly believe the money behind this is hollywood. Actors and actresses will be the biggest losers when AI generated figures take their places. Imagine no more having to listen to those who think they are better because someone told them they can act how we should think. Ole Bill Gates said billions will die due to AI but gave no examples, just like the globull warming scam.
Posted by: Mike at October 01, 2026 01:12 PM (r7WVt)
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Bill, I believe your b.s. meter, even when broken by explosion. IF this happened I suspect it was purposely engineered by the techs to do so. I do not think this technology is anywhere nearly advanced enough to do that. Maybe I'm wrong but we just don't understand enough about thought and how it works.
I think you are onto something Mike. I once saw a movie starring Al Pacino called Simeone which stood for Simulation One. Pacino was a struggling independent film maker and his star quit so he used a new, very advanced AI system and created a superstar. Nobody knew she wasn't real. She ruined Pacino's life because she got all the credit when it was his film and he was her creator. Good movie. But the point is that, yes, it's getting to the point where the prima-donnas of Hollywood won't be able to strut about as they do because a machine will take their jobs. Modern day luddites.
Gates wants to warn about this when he was the guy promoting "transhumanism" for years. He just doesn't like not getting his slice of the pie, methinks.
I think you are onto something Mike. I once saw a movie starring Al Pacino called Simeone which stood for Simulation One. Pacino was a struggling independent film maker and his star quit so he used a new, very advanced AI system and created a superstar. Nobody knew she wasn't real. She ruined Pacino's life because she got all the credit when it was his film and he was her creator. Good movie. But the point is that, yes, it's getting to the point where the prima-donnas of Hollywood won't be able to strut about as they do because a machine will take their jobs. Modern day luddites.
Gates wants to warn about this when he was the guy promoting "transhumanism" for years. He just doesn't like not getting his slice of the pie, methinks.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at October 01, 2026 04:06 PM (oflqW)
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