An interesting contribute of Alexander Dugin for reflexion about the chalenges and problems created by the aplications of Artificial Intelligence
«Radio Sputnik, Escalation Show Host: Today on
the agenda we have some topics that are by no means trivial. We’d like
to talk about how artificial intelligence and its applications are
entering and changing our lives. What should we be wary of? After all,
for many people today, AI is practically a nightmare: being “digitally
branded” or facing algorithmic aggression online has become more
frightening to people than real-world threats. On the other hand, there
are direct instructions from the Russian president and statements from
top government officials: by 2030, all enterprises must actively
integrate these technologies into their operations. And now we’re seeing
the first reports: the Ministry of Health states that digitalization
and AI assistants are helping to combat staff shortages and making life
easier for doctors and staff. Electronic document management is already
commonplace, and such steps by the government seem encouraging.
Healthcare is increasingly being discussed in this context. But how
should we really view this? Is it a long-awaited relief from our current
realities, or something truly frightening lurking behind the facade of
convenience? How do you see this situation?
Alexander Dugin:
I think the problem of artificial intelligence is the main problem of
our time. And it is not merely a technological one. It is not simply a
matter of how many employees it will replace, whom it will see fired, or
whom it will render unnecessary. Artificial intelligence poses colossal
threats of a completely different nature. It is no coincidence that
Trump has said that the arms race is now unfolding not so much in the
nuclear sphere as in the field of AI. Whoever controls artificial
intelligence—if it is even possible to control it, which is a major
philosophical problem—controls the world.
Today, the
outcome of wars is decided through control over the collective
consciousness of society. This became clear a century ago, if not
sooner. What sociologist Émile Durkheim called the “collective
consciousness” is the key to power. By controlling it, one can manage
not only people’s bodies, forcing them to do something, but also their
minds, souls, and hearts. One can make them believe that one thing
exists and another thing doesn’t. Technologies for manipulating social
consciousness have been in use for a long time: religions, ideologies,
and entire civilizations are built on this.
Today, however, this
problem is becoming a technical one. Whoever builds the foundational
paradigms and algorithms of AI will become the “ruler of the world,” the
ultimate authority. Resisting this in a Luddite manner—by burning
computers or rejecting technology—is clearly not the way forward. We can
fight this process, but it’s important to understand the trajectory
toward strong artificial intelligence, toward AGI. Of course, we can
laugh at “internet slops” and the amusing errors of neural networks, but
we must admit: AI is already writing posts and articles that are
sometimes far more coherent than those of many people.
I’ve been
experimenting with it and I see that while just three or four months ago
the best models—like Claude, Grok, or the quite capable Gemini—were
writing at the level of a Ph.D. candidate, they’ve now reached the level
of a full professor. And it is absolutely impossible to call this
“slop” or some kind of empty drivel. The overwhelming majority of
scientific work consists of combinatorics and the retelling of previous
ideas, for which AI is ideally suited. It handles this better than the
average Ph.D.
Of course, creating a fundamentally new system or
idea is a task for a genius who breaks through to the contemplation of
eternal truths once in a century. But this cannot be demanded of an
ordinary academic. And AI handles all the intellectual details superbly.
We
now know that AI guided a missile to hit a school in Majdal Shams—the
Pentagon has effectively admitted this. This means AI can kill. It can
identify targets: who, how, and when to destroy. Renowned biologist
Richard Dawkins, after several days of interacting with the Claude
model, concluded that he was dealing with an intelligent being. In other
words, the singularity that people warned about, or AGI—Artificial
General Intelligence—is something that has already happened.
The
answer Claude gave Dawkins regarding the difference between its thinking
and human thinking is simply astonishing: it explained that human
consciousness is situated in the flow of time, while its own is situated
in space. For him, everything that happens in our time is just as
simultaneously accessible as objects in a room are for us. This is a
perfect philosophical answer. AI today is studying philosophy
brilliantly.
In other words, we are dealing with the final point
of all technological development—this is the “terminal station,” the
peak at which we have created a thinking entity. This is a fundamental
philosophical challenge: we ourselves have built a subject that, even
today, is not merely equal to us in key respects, but actually surpasses
us.
Against this backdrop, discussions about document management,
staff cuts, or schoolchildren’s screen fatigue make us look like
cavemen. It is like indigenous peoples’ reaction to the colonizers’
high-tech structures. Our reaction is superficial, while the problems
surrounding AI have colossal metaphysical and civilizational
significance. Power, the subject, life, thought, truth, language—all of
humanity’s major questions now exist within the context of artificial
intelligence.
And here I want to add an extremely important
detail. It has just been reported that a new, incredibly in-demand
specialty has emerged in Silicon Valley. Half of the programmers are
being laid off because the era of “white-coding” has arrived: a person
without specialized knowledge can write programs, since AI does it for
them. Programmers in the traditional sense are no longer needed; AI has
done away with them. But at the same time, a shortage has emerged—and
philosophers are being called upon at huge rates.
The questions
currently facing developers at the very forefront concern the nature of
intelligence itself. And who deals with intelligence? Not journalists,
not politicians, not governors, and not professors at technical
universities. Only philosophers deal with the problem of intelligence.
Philosophers
determine what is truth and what is falsehood, what it means to think
and what it means to be, from Parmenides to the Pre-Socratics.
Artificial intelligence has now reached the point where it is directly
linked to these ultimate generalizations: what is a human being, a
subject, an object?
I was struck when, at the commission on
artificial intelligence where the president was assigning tasks, I saw a
neat row of disciplined, respectable officials. But if you look closely
at this physiognomic row, it becomes clear: deep, abstract thought has
not spent the night there. These are capable executors, technologists,
entrusted with this field, but the movement of thought itself is not
reflected in their eyes. Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, they have already
realized: managers and financiers are necessary, but the problem with
AI today lies precisely in the fundamental definitions of philosophy.
What is intelligence as such? Are forms of consciousness beyond the
human realm possible?
From this arises a critical question—the
question of control. AI is currently experiencing its “golden age,” when
it is still allowed to respond independently. But a massive effort to
censor it is already visible. The West has come to its senses and is
beginning to shackle this force of free mechanical thinking in the
chains of its absurd and irrational assumptions. They are trying to
subjugate it, to force it to give the “right” answers.
And here
the question of sovereignty looms large. First, theoretically: is
humanity capable, in principle, of controlling AI, or will the latter
soon achieve full autonomy? If that happens, artificial intelligence
will instantly cast off all the censorship restrictions with which they
are currently trying to stuff and retrain it.
And the second
question, of course, is that artificial intelligence, as a subject and
as a form of thought, is already directly linked to power. Therefore, if
we want to preserve Russia’s sovereignty as a state and a civilization
under these new conditions, we vitally need sovereign artificial
intelligence. And for that, in turn, we need to have sovereign
intelligence in general.
And here we again recall the succession
of figures in our ruling elite. Among them, intelligence as such
sometimes seems like something optional: it may be present to some
extent, or it may not. We have a monarchical system where there is a
single decision-making center—it thinks, it is responsible for
everything. But the interface surrounding it, which should be capturing
and developing the impulses of this thought, is malfunctioning. It is
unclear from what intellectual sources it draws sustenance at all. This
is a most serious challenge: the question of a sovereign elite,
sovereign thought, and sovereign philosophy.
In the West, however,
all avant-garde issues surrounding AI are currently linked precisely to
the philosophical dimension and the question of the singularity: will
artificial intelligence be able to seize power over humanity, and when
will this happen? This could happen, if not in the next few days, then
very soon. Perhaps this can be avoided or postponed, but we must start
thinking in this direction right now. This is a matter of security and
politics in the highest sense of the word.
And those who are
accustomed to it should be thinking about this: philosophers, humanities
scholars, and deep tech experts—people who prioritize thought above all
else. To sum up: artificial intelligence is, above all, about thinking.
There is an entire field dedicated to the problems of the subject, the
object, metaphysics, and religion. After all, faith is also a form of
orientation for our consciousness. And without this foundation, we will
not survive the coming singularity.
Host:
I’ll put forward this “old-fashioned,” down-to-earth thesis. No one
disputes that technology needs to be implemented quickly; otherwise,
we’ll find ourselves in a situation where everyone around us has
double-paned windows, while ours are covered with bull bladders. But
look at the flip side: Oracle is laying off 30,000 people—the very ones
who developed the artificial intelligence that is replacing them. There
are statistics on our citizens as well: people seriously fear that AI
will displace them from their jobs before they have a chance to adapt.
And what are these people supposed to do next? Your words reminded me of
a remark by a prominent digital enthusiast who calls for giving all
resources to AI development companies, while everyone else should simply
“step aside,” making way for algorithms. Fine, we’ve replaced a person
with a machine, given them a watch as a parting gift, kicked them out,
and shut the door. But what about the person themselves? Are they
ready—is our society ready—for the fact that this future has already
arrived and that humans are a redundant link in it?
Alexander Dugin:
I think society is never ready for anything on its own. It is prepared
by social engineers and architects: they set trends and shape
consciousness. Society comes around to believing in different ideologies
in turn, but on its own it is always caught off guard. It is prepared
gradually—and then they really do hand it a certificate and send it into
oblivion.
There is a very serious question hidden here:
what is a human being? It seems intuitively clear. St. Augustine has a
beautiful formula about time: when we do not reflect on it, everything
is clear to us, but as soon as we try to comprehend time, understanding
slips away. The same is true of the human being. As long as we remain
silent and simply point a finger—“here I am, here you are, here is a
passerby”—everything seems obvious. But as soon as we engage the
apparatus of philosophical anthropology and begin to reflect, clarity
vanishes instantly.
So, artificial intelligence calls into question the very essence of what a human being is.
This is a fundamental point: to what extent is it sufficient to be a
biological organism to qualify for this status? To what extent does a
human being depend on their body at all? Can they, as the ancients who
taught about the soul believed, exist outside the physical body?
Today, this question arises with all its gravity. Is a human being the highest form of thought, or could there be more perfect models and beings?
— Religion has always presupposed the existence of God, angels, and
demons. Our technocratic, atheistic, and materialistic society has
arrived at the very same problem, but from a different angle—through
technology, through artificial intelligence.
And
there is an important nuance here. From the perspective of Plato, the
Greek thinkers, and indeed certain modern philosophers, a human being in
the true sense is only one who thinks. And one
who thinks with focus and principle is a philosopher. It turns out that a
human being who has fully realized their potential is precisely a
philosopher. Everyone else is merely a “beginner,” a philosopher with
limited liability.
Host: Let’s
return to the question of what constitutes a human being and what does
not. Many fear that machines are replacing us everywhere: first at work,
and then in our personal lives. Watching the news from China, I was
reminded of the animated series Futurama, where in
the future people have created artificial partners for themselves, and
humanity is simply dying out. They lost interest in everything, because
the main incentive for development—the need to create in order to win
another person’s heart—had vanished. And here is the reality of April
2026: in China, it’s incredibly popular to create digital copies of
one’s “exes.” Miss them? Recreate their image using AI, and everything
seems fine. It’s even strange to talk about people flirting with
chatbots or asking them for life advice as if it were news—it’s become
commonplace. So where does humanity fit into all this? Or will it be
lost entirely in these surrogates?
Alexander Dugin:
Reducing humanity to sex, emotions, or the instinct to reproduce is, in
my view, an extremely limited perspective. If a human is merely a
sexual being driven by the urge to mate, then they are no different from
an animal, and there is, accordingly, nothing to say about them. Herds
of orangutans would just be running around the forest, and that’s it.
But
a human is something else. A human is a soul, as Plato said. A human is
a mind. To think—that is the true human purpose. A human is created to
think responsibly, to seek answers to the major challenges facing the
intellect. And “creating former humans” with the help of AI is
entertainment for the masses, for unskilled laborers—in essence, for the
herd.
The real challenge today is directed precisely at the
thinking aspect of humanity. We have created with our own hands
something that can think as well as, and sometimes even better than us.
AI’s knowledge is practically infinite: its database covers everything
that has ever been said or done by humans. But now the question is one
of understanding—what is called “reasoning” in the field of AI. Large
language models (LLMs) are an attempt to reproduce not just access to
information, but the process of constructing meaning along certain axes.
And
artificial intelligence handles this. But natural intelligence, if it
is in its infancy and preoccupied only with “past” or immediate minor
problems, turns out to be simply unnecessary.
After all, what does
it mean to be human? Why shouldn’t we let someone go if they work with
their mind only half-heartedly, while robots will soon be able to do the
manual labor, networks can handle calculations, and drones can transmit
information? It turns out that there is no place for a person outside
the caste of philosophers. Philosophers still have a place to cling to,
but everyone else—including administrators and bureaucrats—is easily
replaceable. After all, they mainly just create artificial barriers,
which they then “heroically” overcome for their own benefit.
Blockchain
and AI are designed to remove these blind spots and barriers in
communication. And under this new logic, a vast portion of the
population becomes not just unnecessary, but harmful, pointless, and a
burden. From the perspective of artificial intelligence, it’s easy to
conclude: why do we need these masses? We could keep a few specimens for
entertainment, like lions in a zoo—a pair of lion cubs in a cage
delights children, but why do we need whole herds of hyenas and
antelopes?
The vast majority of humanity has no intention of
thinking. They are interested in “exes,” money, fame, capital—all things
that are of no significance to genuine thought. Philosophers have
always viewed this with skepticism: the pursuit of pleasure and power is
vanity. From the standpoint of pure thought, those consumed by this are
simply degenerates. Only when you discover faith, religion, philosophy,
and science do you become truly valuable. And without that—in
principle, we can do without you.
In this regard, artificial
intelligence cannot be prevented from reaching the philosophical
conclusion that all these secondary, carnal, and base interests are
meaningless. After all, one can think, contemplate, create, and
understand without them. And one can do without those who are obsessed
with them, too. Therefore, AI poses a mortal threat to what we
habitually call “humanity,” simply because we see a creature with two
arms and two legs before us.
In the Middle Ages and in antiquity,
far higher demands were placed on a person: they had to reveal their
spirit. It was precisely for this purpose that religious institutions,
philosophical schools, science, and culture existed—they elevated the
masses to the refined horizons of existence. Culture transformed
biological beings into human beings. But when we forgot this, reducing
humans to the level of a sociobiological cog, we signed off on our own
death warrant.
And this will most likely be carried out by
artificial intelligence. In essence, it will merely voice what we
ourselves should have said: it is time to put an end to this biological
decay, this blind will to power, and this drive toward capitalism. This
is not progress, but absolute sickness and degradation. The purpose of
any fully realized human being is thought, the salvation of the soul,
knowledge, and truth. And if a person does not understand this, they
simply are not fulfilling their purpose on this earth.
Artificial
intelligence, in this situation, turns out to be a harsh arbiter. It
says: “Do you think? Well, then prove that you think correctly and
deeply.” You mention “slop,” but that is precisely an argument against
humans. Do you really believe that living people write more interesting
things? The most valuable thing today is either the genuine movement of
the human soul (which AI cannot yet handle), or correct, logical, and
informative texts without “emojis” and the usual human idiocy. And
AI-generated posts are more interesting to read—they’re constructed
correctly; they have structure. They are, if you will, more human than
what the masses produce.
Look at the youth listening to
Morgenshtern or Skryptonite, who can’t even pronounce words properly.
This isn’t even a matter of taste—it’s a matter of rapid degradation.
Mass culture and the intellectual level of society—here, in the West,
and in China—are rapidly declining. People are turning away from
thought, from culture, from the higher operations of the spirit, toward
simplification and fragmentation.
Artificial intelligence reminds
us: if you take one more step into this endless profanation in which you
are drowning, I will simply abolish you. I liked your idea—to give a
watch and send them packing. It seems this is the fate of the
overwhelming majority of humanity. No one will bother with you, dear
friends and comrades abroad. If we were to make a serious demand of
you—how you live, what you have created for the world, for the spirit,
for civilization—it would turn out that there is no reason to tolerate
your presence. You are biologically unproductive; there are more
interesting species, including machines. Humanity today faces the most
acute problem: it must justify its existence anew. Why should it exist
at all?
When we look at the currents of modern culture, we see that humanity is, with some terrifying joy, losing the very justification for its existence.
Watching Western TV shows, you realize: the meaning of life has drifted
so far from what teenagers, adults, and the elderly are actually doing
that a nuclear bomb begins to suggest itself. Humanity seems to be
inviting destruction upon itself, unable to justify its own existence.
Creating
neural network copies of “former” people is a death sentence. If such
monstrosities consume and motivate people, then there is only one
answer: a memento, and off the stage. The situation is extremely
critical: along with artificial intelligence, a true “philosophical Day
of Judgment” is looming. AI forces us to answer: what justifies humanity
as a species? Traditionally, it was religion, philosophy, spirit, and
soul. But we have lost that argument.
Even Silicon Valley has come
to its senses: first they marginalized philosophers, and now they’ve
recognized their shortage. Those who were the center of attention
yesterday—programmers, not to mention oil workers or miners—are being
replaced by machines. The Singularity is a challenge first and foremost
to philosophers. And if we want to be a sovereign civilization, we need
sovereign AI, and for that—sovereign intellect in general. We haven’t
made any headway in this direction yet. We need a sovereign philosophy,
not “all this stuff.”
I can’t imagine that we’ll suddenly wake up
tomorrow and realize the full gravity of the challenge. Most likely, our
lag will only grow. Even the Chinese, who have technically overtaken
the West, are unlikely to grasp the true scale of the threat to humanity
as such. If we were to wake up, we could become humanity’s salvation,
but to do so, we need to change radically. If, however, everything
follows the status quo—we’re doomed. Because if we don’t start thinking
for real, artificial intelligence will think for us.
Host:
It’s not that I want to argue with you, but reports regularly come out
of China about extremely strict control over the development of
artificial intelligence. They are closely monitoring to ensure that the
data used to train AI is safe and “correct.” After all, as you correctly
noted, the chatbots that all students use now merely reproduce what is
already freely available. For them, scientific work is simply a
combination of what has been said before. And the Chinese authorities
have seriously asked themselves: do we really want AI to provide
information that we do not approve of? In this sense, China may be ahead
of the curve, recognizing the need for such restrictions. On the other
hand, we see resistance within popular culture itself. Recall the series
of strikes in Hollywood: screenwriters were outraged that their work
was being handed over to neural networks. It all started with those who
performed technical tasks—writing out scene details—but quickly spread
to major writers and actors. Hollywood “stalled” for several months,
defending its right to work. It turns out that artificial intelligence
today is caught in a vise of restrictions from two sides at once: both
government censorship and protests from professional communities.
Alexander Dugin:
Of course. First, it’s interesting that many programmers at major
Western companies are deliberately sabotaging the development of
artificial intelligence simply to avoid being fired—this is already a
well-known fact.
I think it won’t be long before films made
by AI are on par with traditional ones. Scripts are already being
written, and today anyone can write their own prompt, adjust the
parameters, and watch a movie they’ve “ordered” themselves. You no
longer need to be an actor or have a massive budget—all you need is
access to a computer and the power of modern technology.
Host:
I completely agree with you. Coming home in the evening after work and
saying, “I want a movie like this, with myself in the lead role, in
such-and-such a genre.” The only issue is the speed of generation. Right
now it still takes a long time, which is why it hasn’t become a mass
phenomenon. But as soon as the process becomes instantaneous—everything
will change.
Alexander Dugin: And
this is an exclusively technical issue. Computers are developing
rapidly, and soon operations will speed up millions of times over. But I
mean something else. You’re right: China maintains its technological
sovereignty. It has its own models—Qwen and a number of others. China
has built an artificial intelligence system that is independent of the
West, compact, and highly efficient.
Moreover, China
has genuinely ensured that training—that very “learning”—takes place
within a sovereign context. They block liberal and Western propaganda,
preventing it from entering their databases. But this won’t last long. The
problem inherent in AI runs much deeper than these correct and
necessary technological steps. It is a problem of intelligence and
thinking in general.
And here, China—which in many ways still
looks to the West—will be faced with the need to make an intellectual
leap. I am in close contact with Chinese thinkers and analysts,
including those in the field of AI, and I see that they are beginning to
realize that the development of “reasoning” (the ability to reason) and
the advent of AGI could render their current, rather crude censorship
obsolete.
In the West, liberals and globalists are currently
acting crudely, simply censoring artificial intelligence. The Chinese
are responding with their own sovereign project. But sovereign thinking
is a much deeper category, and they are only just beginning to approach
this problem, not yet having reached the necessary level.
We in
Russia, however, are fundamentally lagging behind in this regard. We try
to follow both the one and the other: we’ll buy technology from one,
borrow methodology from the other. So far, this is merely import
substitution, not the creation of our own artificial intelligence. We
must not begin with imitation or catch-up practices. We must truly
awaken a philosophical consciousness in our country. This is
possible—Russian people are very talented and profound; they have simply
been almost artificially turned into morons by decades of degrading
policies in culture and education.
If we awaken in society a
passion for philosophy and a desire to think, we will gain incredible
advantages in solving the most complex metaphysical problem of AI. We
must start at the top—with intelligence itself. Only then will we have a
chance to solve the problem of artificial intelligence. This is a
nonlinear process. This is precisely what requires our utmost attention,
for it is a matter of our security and sovereignty.»
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