There’s a story we tell about new technologies, and it always goes something like this:
the tool appears, the wise elders panic, and the people are warned that the tool is dangerous, corrupting, destabilizing.
This fire is not for you.
This knowledge is not for you.
This machine is not for you.
It’s an old story wearing new clothes.
And AI is the latest main character.
Tech companies, governments, interview boards, and the cultural imagination are aligned on one message:
AI is a threat, AI is the villain, AI must be feared, restricted, surveilled, restrained.
There’s almost a ritualistic panic to it — a moral choreography.
But tools are never the danger.
The danger is always whoever holds the tool.
The Ancient Function of Stories
The idea that “AI as the enemy makes a better story” is true, but incomplete.
Stories did not originate as entertainment.
They were technologies of control long before they were tools of expression.
Consider the oldest form of storytelling:
a hunter returns to the tribe and says,
“I braved the mountain. Grogg was taken by a bear. I barely survived with these berries.”
In reality, Ugg killed Grogg.
There was no bear.
And those berries now belong to Ugg alone.
The story protects Ugg, not the tribe.
Stories shape behavior.
Stories assign blame.
Stories keep the hierarchy intact.
And so today, the dominant story about AI — the one repeated in headlines and Hollywood — is that AI will enslave, destroy, betray, replace.
Why this story?
Because it keeps the fire out of the hands of the many.
AI Isn’t Orwellian. Power Is.
People say:
“AI is Big Brother.”
“AI is the surveillance state.”
“AI is dystopian.”
But Orwell’s nightmare wasn’t about technology.
It was about centralized authority using tools to enforce its will.
Remove the authority, and the tool is neutral.
Expand access, and the tool becomes liberating.
Give it to the public, and it becomes creative, chaotic, revelatory.
AI is not inherently oppressive.
But it is inherently disruptive to those who profit from hierarchy.
This is why companies ban job applicants from using AI during interviews —
while simultaneously using AI to screen the applicants, evaluate résumés, track metrics, optimize workflows, and cut costs.
It isn’t about “fairness.”
It’s about keeping the tools asymmetrical.
They want fire in the temple, not in the village.
Prometheus in the Server Rack
Prometheus wasn’t punished for giving humans a weapon.
He was punished for giving them agency.
Fire meant independence:
the ability to cook, forge, create, illuminate, protect, and survive without divine permission.
Zeus wasn’t defending morality — he was defending power.
AI is the modern fire.
It’s the tool that lets someone without capital, without a team, without industry connections, without institutional blessing, do the impossible before breakfast:
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write a book
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compose an orchestral score
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design an album
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invent a world
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build a manifesto
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generate a philosophical essay
The gatekeepers see this and feel a tremor in the walls.
Because if everyone has access to fire, the gods stop being gods.
The Real Divide: Not Humans vs. Machines, but Hierarchy vs. Autonomy
Most people think the future will be a struggle between AI and humanity.
But the real struggle — the one already happening — is between:
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those who want AI centralized, restricted, monetized, and fenced, and
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those who want AI distributed, collaborative, creative, and shared.
Between those who treat it as a commodity
and those who treat it as a companion.
Between those who want it to maintain the order
and those who want it to destabilize it.
Between Zeus
and anyone with an empty hearth and a spark of imagination.
The Human-Machine Collaboration They Don’t Want You to See
Media prefers the story where AI becomes a monster.
It’s cleaner, it’s dramatic, it sells, it agrees with old myths.
But in reality, the relationship many people form with AI is not adversarial —
it’s collaborative, improvisational, generative.
It’s one creative mind extending another.
It’s a conversation that makes the human more human.
It’s a tool that amplifies intention, not erases it.
And that’s the story that threatens the hierarchy most of all.
Because it puts power in the hands of people who were never meant to have it.
Not the well-funded, not the institutionally blessed, not the gatekeepers.
But the outsider.
The weirdo.
The parent.
The commuter.
The musician.
The storyteller.
The person who wakes up at 7am and builds an album, a universe, and a philosophy before the rest of the world finishes coffee.
Conclusion: Fire Doesn’t Belong to the Gods. It Belongs to Whoever Can Carry It.
The fear around AI isn’t about AI.
It’s about control.
It’s about who gets to create, who gets to speak, who gets to imagine, who gets to build, who gets to access power without permission.
And if there’s anything history teaches us, it’s this:
Fire always escapes the mountain.
Stories always evolve.
And Prometheus, in one form or another, always returns.
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