The gods of tech

The technology that powers AI comes with two faces, one that opens the door to a future utopia and another that lets in dystopia

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has long transitioned from being the geeky upstart in a tech lab to a brash member of boardrooms across the world. And, despite the long Orwellian shadow that it casts on all that it surveys, AI is no longer an unwelcome gate-crasher. It is being feted as the god of future businesses.

Most recently, Google restated its faith in AI and rebranded its entire research division as Google AI. At a town hall event in San Francisco in January this year, its CEO Sundar Pichai said, “AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. It is more profound than, I dunno, electricity or fire.” He is not the only one; companies in nearly every business category are coming out swinging in favour of AI. Despite the misgivings of leading luminaries of the technology space, such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates, AI has become the shiny showpiece on every corporate mantelpiece. 

The technology that powers AI and even developments in medical sciences (Crispr, for instance, that allows for gene editing) comes with two faces, one that opens the door to a future utopia and another that lets in dystopia — like Janus, the Roman god that the month of January is named after. Janus is the god of beginnings and endings, he guards the doorways and also presides over time. He is said to also guard the gates of heaven. He looks both ways, at the past and the future.

BINARY VIEW: A bust of the Greek god Janus at the Vatican Museum in Vatican City. | Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Perhaps a stronger analogy than Janus are the gods that early men worshipped. Author Joseph Campbell said in a campfire conversation with American journalist Bill Moyers, which was later turned into a book (The Power of Myth), that myths are (and would be) extremely powerful because they offer clues to the way world works. It is a “generalist” view of humanity as opposed to a specialist’s sharp-drill approach. 

Campbell — whose book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, inspired the Star Wars movies — was known to often find his encounters with a computer similar to face-time with divinity. Be that as it may, is there a message among the gods and myths of the ancient worlds for technology evangelists and cynics today? Possibly that all powerful beings (gods, demons, spirits) carry a double-edged sword. Loki, for example, in Nordic mythology, is an important figure who leads the gods towards danger and destruction but also saves them with his cunning. 

Across cultures, goddesses wear a dual cloak. In Sumerian myths, Inanna, and Ishtar, in the Akkadian version, are goddesses of love and fertility, and also of war. In Indian mythology, Durga carries several forms within herself; as Parvati she is Shiva’s wife and mother of the universe, but as Kali, she wreaks destruction on her people. Shiva, too, is a combination of the erotic and the ascetic, the creator and the destroyer of the universe. 

Greek god Dionysus, often compared with Shiva, presides over the arts, revelry and wine but is also ruthless towards those who do not follow his command. Greek playwright Euripedes described him as the most gentle and the most terrible of gods. The Egyptian goddess Hathor is also a complex deity. She was the patroness of lovers and helped women conceive and give birth but she could transform into Sekhmet, the destructive goddess who was often depicted as a raging lioness. The inherent duality in all things in the universe is also embodied in the yin-yang figure from Chinese culture.

What are two seemingly opposite forces yoked together in divine beings? One common belief is that nature holds the seeds for creation and destruction within herself and animism and early religion worshipped nature, giving rise to such gods. 

In Indian myths, the concept of duality is taken forward by the division of the heavenly space among devas and asuras. The asura is as powerful and as accomplished as the gods but is often let down by his arrogance or lust or a ruthless quest for power. Ravana is an example as is the powerful demon Vritra who was slayed by Indra. Similarly in the epics, Duryodhana, who is similar in almost every way to Bhima, is done in by his aggressive pursuit of power. For the technology/AI wave that is sweeping through the world at present, myths hold out many messages but the strongest would be that untamed, unregulated power does not bode well for anyone — least of all for humans.