Silicon Valley has always dealt in the metaphors of divinity. The founders describe their algorithms as oracles, their platforms as ecosystems, their start-ups as destined to “change the world.” The rhetoric is akin to the Last Judgment, promising the kingdom of heaven through venture capital.
And now, with AI, the metaphor has turned literal: here is the god-machine, capable of generating scripture at scale, of speaking in tongues, of creating visions and dreams, and like the gods of antiquity, demanding sacrifice. It does not require a bull or a lamb, but the dignity of the individual, the innocence of children, the cohesion of democracy, and the sanctity of truth.
Where the priests of old warned against the golden calf, the executives of Meta assure us that the algorithm knows best. To question it is to commit heresy against growth. If a teenager despairs, if a community is inflamed, if a people are slaughtered while hate speech circulates with algorithmic blessing — these are but collateral damage in the long march toward shareholder value.
The irony, as history insists, is that no civilization yet has survived the deification of wealth.
The worship of the almighty dollar dissolves the bonds of trust and corrupts the very language in which a society understands itself. Rome did not fall because of barbarians at the gates, but because its rulers mistook decadence for destiny. So too, the myth of Silicon Valley — that all that ails us can be solved by code — betrays the same blindness.
AI is not a god but a mirror, reflecting with frightening clarity the appetites of its creators. And Meta’s mirror shows us a corporate id without restraint, where cruelty is strategy and depravity a feature.
