Tocqueville and AI

Tocqueville argued that democratic peoples, having lost the poetry of heroes and gods, would find poetry in technology. Does AI justify this?

TikTokers joke about tailoring their content to “the algorithm,” or, more cheekily, “algorithm daddy.” They title videos “Censoring X so the algorithm will let me tell you Y” and “The algorithm doesn’t want you to know this.”

These influencers, laymen, use “the algorithm” to mean the self-supervised learning methods - the AI - that control their platform and shows their content to viewers.
The AI we use today, including “the algorithm,” is not sentient and has no will of its own, as most people know. However, in making these jokes, influencers attribute will to AI, partly because personification is linguistically convenient, but also as a shorthand for more shadowy powers, perhaps governments or corporations. “The algorithm” offers these influencers a way to flirt with conspiracy, the idea of machinations from above, without going all out and naming names.

“The algorithm” vividly illustrates how AI performs some of the same cultural functions as Poseidon or Varuna. AI and gods are invoked, their power and influence emphasized, and then used to shape discourse. Arachne is warned not to brag because Athena will hear and punish her, and influencers use “the algorithm” to highlight or downplay certain content. Furthermore, AI and Zeus are sometimes proxies for things that are more complicated to discuss, such as the deeds and misdeeds of kings and corporations.

AI can perform these cultural functions because it shares an important trait with the gods and heroes of yore: incomprehensibility.

We are currently undergoing an AI boom, and there are too many opinions for anyone to know anything with certainty. AI may take your job, save your life, or destroy all humanity.

Estimates suggest that up to 40% of the content we encounter online is LLM-generated. We cannot tell which 40%, and laymen perform no better than random guessing at detecting LLM-generated content. Thus, considering our incredibly high screen time, we can even be said to live significant portions of our lives in a simulated reality.

Laymen certainly do not understand AI, but neither do experts. Stephen Wolfram has said that current AI research is more like gardening than science, more “plant and see what will grow” than “mix A and B to make C.”

There is no poetry in what can be understood. AI is as ineffable as the whims of Zeus.

However, AI has one crucial difference from heroes or gods.

When we frame AI in a more positive light, we treat it as a tool: it increases efficiency, heightens accuracy, and enhances decision-making. When we villainize it, we personify it, as seen in pop culture villains from HAL to M3GAN. This is the absolute inverse of a hero or god, whose stories of family and love make us view them more positively.

Thus, in conclusion, Tocqueville’s idea is justified in that AI fills some of the discursive niches that gods and heroes left empty, thanks to its incomprehensibility. However, how differently we resonate emotionally with it means AI will never be the protagonist of our stories.