I was struck recently, because I’m a literaturd, by the relevance of Christopher Marlow’s play Dr Faustus for the current enthusiasm for AI (Artificial Intelligence). Marlow has much to say about human arrogance and greed that strikes a note with the ambitions of those in alliance with high-tech innovation and venture capitalism, Elon Musk Zuckerberg, Theil, Bezos, Altman and the like. They have the same sort of reputation and status today as that enjoyed by the eponymous hero in Marlow’s play.

Faustus was the universally admired genius of his age; an intellectual giant with no rival. No one could equal him in logic. In medicine: “whole cities … escaped the plague,/ And thousand desperate maladies been eased”¹ because of him. If the law is “Too servile and illiberal for (him)” what other worlds are left for him to conquer? To become a god, to “try (his) brains to gain a deity” and “Resolve me of all ambiguities.”? That is, the resolution of all doubt, ultimate knowledge and understanding of all that exists, or can be conceived. Life without limits. As he says, “When all is done divinity is best”. A joke doing the rounds of Silicon Valley among AI researchers has it they’re “building God”² Many an (attempted) true word is spoken in jest. They may not mean it literally, but … .

The resolution of all ambiguities is the promise of AI. No effort necessary, nothing left to explore or resolve. In other words, the complete elimination of all doubt; of all mystery, of the unknown. The meaning of everything revealed. Of what makes life worth living. Of, essentially, what it means to be a human being. For, if nothing else, we are consumed by curiosity and doubt: would I? should I? could I? The conditional. To be, or not to be? But omnipotence and absolute knowledge are not enough. Faustus reveals, for all his genius, he is “but … a man” with a man’s desires. He bargains with Mephistophilis, in return for his soul, to ‘spare him four and twenty years,/Letting him live in all voluptuousness’.

The present era in which we live, is one of unparalleled abundance, wealth, narcissistic self-absorption, self-indulgence and the means for immediate gratification of all the senses. The next step is life without limitations. ‘Get lost in a world of convenience’ is the Woolworth’s advertising slogan*.* This is the promise of Artificial Intelligence. In a word, decadence. A pornographic, sensually saturated world. Greed is the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. It permeates everything. This is why Faustus is so relevant to us today. Humanity’s aspirations, ambitions and temptations have not changed. Get lost indeed.

Metaphorically, it seems to me, humanity has made a Faustian pact, with Artificial Intelligence in the role of Mephistophilis. The immediate rewards are already manifest in medicine, economics, science and engineering. What is the price we will have to pay? Artificial Intelligence is the most recent and the most powerful expression of libertarian rationalism. But, uncertainty is the engine of creativity. The alternative is impotence, barren exhaustion. Why do anything? Get lost, indeed.

Faustus’s asks Mephistopheles who has been damned eternally: “Where are you damned?” He replies: “Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.” Hell is here and now. Now is the only moment, and this in it is the only place. Nor, (are we) out of it.

“Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed

In one self place; for where we are is hell,

And where hell is there must we ever be.”

How can we prepare for a world - a universe - we can neither fathom nor foretell? There is no guarantee that AI won’t fall into the hands of bad actors, as we have already seen with social media, and the Dark Web. In the hands of self-serving dictators, the consequences could be devastating. There is no doubt, as we have already seen, AI can bring huge benefits, but Mephistopheles knew how to sugar the pill. Money and power and arrogance are driving its development. The promises of AI obscure the motives of its most enthusiastic advocates and their thousands of collaborators and enthusiasts, all of whom we are assured are ‘super intelligent’. Super intelligence is no guarantee of restraint or wisdom; or compassion for that matter. The blind temptations of hubris are well recorded. They would do well to consider what Sir Francis Bacon, the founder of empiricism and the scientific method, observed: “The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall: but in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it.”³

To date, none of the digital platforms promoting AI (Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Google, X ,TikTok etc.,) has accepted any form of responsibility for, or restraint for the undeniable harm they are causing. Hubris and the profit motive have triumphed over all. Though there are signs of resistance. It remains to be seen how successful they will be. These are early days as I write. The full consequences of technologically surcharged social disfunction are yet to be acknowledged, much less understood. I sense Nemesis waiting patiently in the shadows.

In the meantime, there can be no gainsaying the exponential explosion of psychological distress directly attributable to the ubiquity of social media and the Dark Web. While the actual and potential benefits of AI are trumpeted, the dangers are downplayed and minimized. One of the most common causes of distress is addiction to the social media, which has resulted in a crisis of loneliness, especially among the young. Instead of providing a ‘community of relationships’, the original promise of the Internet, the result has been a network of strangers with nothing in common except image and self-promotion. Another casualty of screen/social media addiction is diminishing attention span. Like all addictions, it has been accompanied by depression, drugs and suicide; spiritual, psychological and creative despair.

With anonymity assured, extremists are free to pervade to an audience of billions, whatever hatred and bigotry takes their fancy. It is becoming more and more difficult to discriminate between genuine and ‘fake’ news. Traditional news media, along with experts, are not trusted. Most people these days get their news from personalized websites that cater to their tastes, interests and prejudices. Advertising is focused more and more on the Internet as it takes its cue from porn sites on how to capture viewers’ attention. And, it is in the interests of the app. companies to keep people hooked. No drug cartel makes as much money, or has as much power.

How we respond to these issues has become ever more urgent. It is a moot point whether AI will be able to resolve the conflict between the rational, spiritual and emotional aspects of humanity. How can we discriminate between what is moral or immoral amidst the wealth of, and complexity of information we are inundated with in an increasingly a transactional culture and secularized world, in which age-old customs, verities and institutions have been discarded and nothing put in their place? Why is our understanding of right and wrong so diverse? So, disputed? So, complex? Most often, so ambiguous? The resolution of ‘all ambiguities’ is a false promise; one that could lead to huge suffering; even the collapse of civilisation; the end of history. Are we fated? We are facing a catastrophe brought on by arrogance and greed. Mephistopheles’s hell, or, if you prefer, Frankl’s existential vacuum*.* In either case, it is of our own making.

“Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.”⁴

June 2026