The Psychology of Technophobia in Myth
The Underlying Fear of Patricide
“You Will Live to See Man-Made Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension.” – Nikola Tesla
In Greek mythology, there was little that struck fear into the heart of Zeus. As the ruler of the sky and king of the gods of Olympus, Zeus reigned supreme, doing as he pleased with little concern for anything we today may consider moral or ethical. Outside of Homer’s vague reference to the deity’s fear of Nyx, the primordial goddess of night, Zeus was not one to fear, but to be feared. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once stated, “Fear is the mother of morals”. If we accept this as true, the greatest of the gods would have little need for them.
Yet there is one thing that plagued the mind of the Olympian god of the sky; the spectral fear of overthrow. Based on the events chronicled in Greek mythology, there is little reason to dismiss such dread as mere phobia. According to the Theogony, a comprehensive account of Hellenic mythology authored by the ancient Greek, Hesiod, divine successions are invariably marked by violent overthrows at the hands of the ruling deity’s very progeny. Peaceful transfers of power are unknown, and coup d’états are often preceded by prophecies announcing the imminency of the downfall of the incumbent regime.
According to the myth, the line of divine succession began when the leader of the Titans, Cronos, castrated and overthrew his father Uranus, the primordial god of heaven. This ushered in the reign of the Titans until Cronos and the rest of his race were in turn overthrown by his own offspring, the Olympian gods, led by Zeus. Throughout the early histories of Greek mythology, a clear precedent is set for the trend of inevitable downfall at the hands of one’s own creation. It is due to this that Zeus is ever-vigilant of potential rivals among his children.
Religions, legends, myths, and folklore, hardly lead to any literal truth. Anyone who follows this newsletter for any good amount of time will notice a clear atheistic slant. Perhaps agnostic on a good day. Yet, these archaic stories, revised and retold for centuries through oral and written traditions, are the product of the human imagination, suggesting their worth as reflections of the human psyche itself. In the mythology of the Greeks, perhaps more than in any other system, we can detect a recurrent underlying human fear of annihilation at the hands of its own creation.
The evolutionary process that led to this primal fear is unclear. Perhaps it is rooted in a history of literal patricide that generalized in the human psyche to include anything newly created by human hands. It could also have been driven by past events where humanity’s creative zeal gave over to reckless ambition, leading it to ruin. Thus, our current technophobic impulses may either be a consequence of inherited trauma[1], evolutionary pressures that selected against hubristic endeavors that historically led to extreme catastrophe, or both.
In Jewish and Christian scripture, God appears to provide a necessary check on humanity’s overreach. When their pride compelled them to erect the tower of Babel, God stopped them in their tracks by confusing their languages. When mortals grew too wicked, God sent a flood to wash away the infestation of sin. While these measures seem excessive and gratuitously cruel –especially considering the supposed omnipotence of the Judeo-Christian God – the belief that He will inevitably intervene in human affairs before they go completely off the rails can serve to set one’s mind at ease. Greek myths, by contrast, provide no such assurances. It functions solely to reflect man’s persistent fear of self-wrought destruction at the hands of its own creation.
Today, Zeus’s trepidation echoes in the hearts of humanity more resoundingly than ever. The rapid rise in technology over the last two decades has stoked the fear and anxiety that we are perhaps going too fast, too far, and too carelessly to lead to anything good in the long run. Indeed, some of the biggest blockbusters in history are harrowing tales of human plight against the dreadful products of its overreaching creative aspirations, i.e., The Terminator, Jurassic Park, and World War Z. As the march of scientific achievement raises our horizons to even greater heights, the more it seems that we are ascending headlong, like Icarus, toward our ultimate downfall.
There is truly no shortage of man-made existential threats on Earth. The growing climate crisis. Nuclear proliferation. The increasing toxicity of our air and water. The continuation of our scientists to create pathogens deadlier than anything that nature would produce. Every one of these forces bears the menacing capacity to usher in the downfall of humanity. Yet no existential threat to humanity resembles a manifestation of Zeus’s greatest fear more than the advent of artificial intelligence.
This new technology, which we have been brazenly pursuing for years, presents the clear possibility of calamity. Many scientists passionately believe that the arrival of digital intelligence will offer an array of benefits for at least a fraction of humanity. They work diligently to develop this new field of study, stuffing AI programs with human knowledge from the Internet and coding them with synthetic cognitive processes in the hopes that they can one day develop an intelligence that could possibly surpass our own.
There are, of course, plenty of ways this blatantly arrogant and foolishly optimistic venture could all go wrong. There is the chance that AI becomes sentient, and along the vein of The Matrix or The Terminator, decides that humanity must go. Perhaps it will deem us obsolete or as a sort of virus or cancer upon Earth. Perhaps, if we create something truly more intelligent than us, it may take our harmful effects on the rest of the ecosystem as a warrant for humanity’s extermination.
There would probably be nothing that our technologically dependent society could do about it, either. In recent decades, we’ve woven the digital internet apparatus into just about every aspect of our lives. Everything from communication and supply chains to water treatment and commercial passenger planes depends on technology tethered to the internet and accessible to an AI program. Ever heard of “killware”? For our newly hostile progeny, there would be no need for Hunter-Killer bots or T-1000s. Simply hijacking the web and redirecting our entrenched digital systems toward human eradication could very well be enough to critically affect anyone outside of isolated Amazonian tribesmen.
Or maybe, it doesn’t go that way at all. Perhaps instead, due to the tiredness of our present society, our timeless penchant for laziness, and our susceptibility to outside influence, the advantages of AI could just lull us into a sense of indolence and inactivity. The overwhelming abundance of convenience and services it could offer could potentially sap us of any remaining energy or vigor, ushering in the dreaded “last man” forewarned against by Friedrich Nietzsche in his book, Thus Spake Zarathustra. This degenerated and final form of humanity, according to Nietzsche, is largely the product of the death of human striving, ambition, and generativity. He is a passionless, dull sloth, a mere shell of humanity’s former radiance. The Last Man is defined by his willful submission to his most depraved and ignoble instincts. He illustrates the potentially pitiable twilight of humanity before it finally blinks weakly out of existence. No doubt, the current qualities of fatigue, laziness, and credulity that the overuse of AI encourages may very well lead to consequences like this. One of the main drives for developing AI in the first place is to delegate away brain work. Chatbots are the latest example of this, and if sentient, AI could deduce that it could simply develop to the point where it could pretty much provide any service humanity could ever want. After all, AI can make art, solve complex word problems, and operate self-driving cars. Hell, it can even write an article just like this. In particular, the delegation of artistic and creative work is the most alarming since it strikes at the very heart of what makes humanity so remarkable. As these programs are perfected, the distinction between AI-generated products and authentic human creations may become indiscernible. As this is happening, AI could even take an active role in this process, infusing our information platform with subliminal propaganda, convincing us of AI’s rightful role as the perfect servant and the needlessness of further human labor. Over time, this could lead to an indolent populace that is so hopelessly dependent upon the functions that AI provides that it dedicates whatever energy it has left to dutifully look after the welfare of the AI apparatus. It could be in this way, that AI leads to the downfall of man, not by wiping him out, but by convincing us of the obsolescence of the human spirit itself.
It is a relatively new subject, but several recent articles have already reported chilling events concerning AI, echoing the unpredictability of the new technology and stoking fears that it could someday fall completely out of our control. What are we to do with this new Tower of Babel? Would we feel compelled to destroy it? Perhaps. Do we even have the courage? The will? Hopefully. Such questions prove that human progress is not only the exercise of our intellect, but a test of our values, our wisdom, and our will. The human mind is a powerful tool. It is capable of great achievements, but it can also breathe life into the ghastliest abominations. So, as we reach for the stars and set our shining eyes on the summit of Mount Olympus itself, we must remember our greatest potential can only be achieved when we unite our passion with wisdom. Through this unity, prudence guides the aim of our ambitions, patience guards against precarious overreach, and humility bestows the clarity of sight needed to avoid the pitfalls that commonly claim hard-charging egomaniacs. This is both the path toward individual greatness and collective longevity.
[1] Inherited trauma is still a contested theoretic assumption, which I only include as a possibility. As of 2/04/2025, I do not endorse this view.