Emily Gorcenski: AI Idolatry and Technological Fetishism

In “Making God: The Millenarianism and Manifest Destiny of AI and Technofuturism,” Emily Gorcenski (2023) demonstrates not only her experience as a “data scientist and engineer,” but also an ability, and indeed, a desire, to grasp the illusions and contradictions of the AI industry within which she works. If the former gives her self-published essay its authenticity, the latter accounts for the approach she takes to grapple with the extra-scientific phenomena pervading her field.

For Gorcenski endeavours to situate the contemporary awe and wonder for AI in the convergent histories and discourses of modern capitalist colonialism and religious imaginaries of the divine and transcendent. Doing so helps her to distinguish between the transfixing hype and the real capabilities of the technology at various moments in its history. Thus, the essay can be described as a critique of contemporary technological fetishism, which identifies narratives that not only cover over the industry’s failed initiatives but also its imbrication in the injustices meted out by the capitalist colonial machine.

Read more “Emily Gorcenski: AI Idolatry and Technological Fetishism” →