AI ethics debates reveal tech industry’s colonialist knowledge gaps, weaponising spirituality as a band-aid for systemic failures
Original framing: “To make AI morally good, tech companies are turning to religion. But some say it isn't that simple - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
The **trickster figure of Coyote** (Indigenous North America) or **Eshu** (Yoruba tradition) would expose AI ethics as a **farce**—a performative charade masking **corporate greed and state violence**. **Erasmus’s *Praise of Folly*** would mock how tech elites **pretend to seek wisdom** while **extracting it from the marginalized**. **Bakhtin’s carnivalesque** reading would reveal how 'AI morality' is a **grotesque spectacle**, where **sacred knowledge is commodified** and **dissent is silenced**. The **trickster’s inversion** asks: *What if AI ethics were not about 'good vs. evil' but about **who gets to define 'good'?** The **absurdity** lies in **celebrating 'ethical AI' while ignoring its **structural harms**—like a **jester at a king’s execution**, laughing while the system grinds on. **Anansi’s cautionary tales** warn that **pride in 'innovation' is the downfall of civilizations**—a lesson Silicon Valley refuses to heed.
The AP headline’s framing of AI ethics as a **religion vs.
secularism debate** is a **smokescreen** for Silicon Valley’s **epistemological colonialism**—where **marginalized knowledge systems** are **consulted only when commodifiable**, then discarded once their **legitimacy is extracted**. This mirrors **historical patterns** from **Tuskegee to MKUltra**, where **ethical frameworks** were **weaponized to justify harm** under the guise of progress. The **trickster role of AI itself**—as both **mirror and amplifier of human hubris**—exposes how **'moral' debates** are **performative** when divorced from **material justice**, **labor rights**, and **Indigenous sovereignty**. **Solution pathways** must **center decolonial governance**, **worker cooperatives**, and **adversarial ethics testing**, while **trickster disruption** (e.g., **hackathons, speculative fiction**) forces the industry to confront its **structural violence**. The **real crisis** is not whether AI can be 'good' but whether **power structures** will ever **cede control** to **collective, relational ethics**—or if they will **continue to repackage oppression as innovation**.