what’s the cost of an ai ideology?
dialectics session at the university of cambridge on ai ideologies
Content and facilitation by Priscila Chaves
April 9, 2025
What’s the cost of an ai ideology?
Dialectics session at the University of Cambridge on AI Ideologies
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This is an abstract from my research resulting in a dissertation in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MSt in AI Ethics and Society at the University of Cambridge. It is not a comprehensive representation of the full study and may omit detailed analyses, methodologies, and supporting evidence for the sake of brevity. The findings and interpretations presented here have not undergone formal peer review and should be considered preliminary.
Readers are encouraged to approach the content with this context in mind and to seek further clarification or discussion if needed. For inquiries about the complete research or for collaboration opportunities, reach out to me directly.
What if Artificial Intelligence (AI) was not just a tool, but the way we access the truths of the universe?
With this idea in mind, increasingly intense narratives about AI are resurfacing in the Western world. Some sound like optimistic science fiction: they promise us superpowers, a perfect integration between human and machine. Others verge on the apocalyptic: intelligences so advanced that we might lose control... or even be displaced as the dominant species. Amidst all this, there is the promise: to solve humanity's great problems—hunger, disease, the climate crisis, and even death itself.
But what does all this tell us about how we imagine the future? And how we understand what it means to be human?
These are not new questions. Philosophy has been asking them for centuries. Plato spoke of the soul yearning to be freed from the body. Today, General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), which seeks to imitate or surpass human intelligence, seems to be the modern embodiment of that same aspiration to transcend.
If we look through Plato's cave myth, the question changes: are we emerging into the light of real knowledge... or merely seeing new shadows cast by algorithms we don't even understand? Can technology liberate us, or are we delving deeper into the cave, into an illusion disguised as science?
The idea of Superintelligence—an artificial mind that surpasses human capabilities—both fascinates and frightens. For thinkers like Descartes or Kant, reason was what defined us as humans. So, if a machine reasons better than we do... what does it mean to be human? Where does the human end and the artificial begin?
Meanwhile, AI Safety startups, which claim to be the only ones capable of protecting humanity from future AI risks, proliferate and receive billions of dollars in investment. However, many of them are driven and funded by the same people who seek to create AGI.
And it is no coincidence that many of these leaders are linked to Trans-humanist ideas—a movement that dreams of overcoming death through technology—whose ideological roots are said to be connected to eugenics projects of the 20th century. Thus, the question becomes urgent: who decides what it means to "improve" the human being? Are we building a future for everyone... or just for a few?
In his dialogue with Cayley, Ivan Illich warns that the most dangerous evil is not the obvious evil, but the evil disguised as good. When claims of service are used as argument to justify the unjust system, it can transform into its opposite: control, oppression, even violence. Illich warns us that sometimes, the worst consequence does not come from those we consider “evil"... but from the corruption of the “best."
This dialectical session was not just about Artificial Intelligence. It was about us: our beliefs, what we long for... and what we are willing to sacrifice in the name of progress. The promise of the Singularity, for digital immortality, for a form of technological “salvation," closely resembles Judeo-Christian narratives about the final judgment and eternal life.
And as Marx warned, perhaps we should ask ourselves, is the promise of AGI the new opium of the people?
