AI, indulgences, and the false promise of salvation

Welcome to The Tech Bubble. This week, another addition to the artificial intelligence series (this time playing around with Martin Luther’s criticisms of indulgences to revisit earlier arguments about AI)

My series of essays on Artificial Intelligence thus far:

• AI, life engineering, and digital hygiene - On artificial intelligence as an attack vector for eugenics & political shock therapy.

• AI, slavery, surveillance, and capitalism - On artificial intelligence for The Labor Question & the limits of surveillance capitalism and techno-feudalism.

• The Silicon Valley Consensus & AI Capex (Part 1) - On overbuilding AI infrastructure and its energy supply.

Here are also a few other essays on AI that you could probably fit in there:

• Does OpenAI’s latest marketing stunt matter? - On distractions, intentions, aesthetics, and fascism.

• The phony comforts of useful idiots - On Casey Newton and the shallowness of (AI) anti-skepticism.

• Trapped in the Maw of a Stillborn God - On Vegas as a laboratory for surveillance and social control, the explosion of gambling as a sign of a degenerate culture seized by despair, AI delusions at CES, and the future.

If these essays sound interesting, consider supporting The Tech Bubble (me) with a subscription ($7 a month or $70 a year). If you're already supporting me, let me kiss that big ass cranium of yours expeditiously.

Today’s essay is about artificial intelligence (surprise), using debates about AI, some relevant news items, some reflections on real use cases, its various material and spiritual impacts, and the general degradation of our world.

Looking for an illustration to pair with the essay, Burke’s called to me from the recesses of one of my drives—it projects corrupted strength, the intervention of/observation by alien forces, evidence of violence and the promise of it, and it also just looks cool as hell. I did a reverse image search to try and credit the illustrator (and remember how I came across it), which turned up a few things. One was a May 2024 quote tweet of mine where I simply posted the picture. Another was a New Noise Magazine interview with a Cleveland, Ohio heavy metal core band called Walking Wounded that used this painting for their debut EP, Bestial Condemnation and captured better than I initially did why the picture was perfect:

“Bestial Condemnation is a fantasy story about an aging knight who makes a