I watched a clip on Sky News last night in which the wide-eyed tech pundit told us that the AI behemoth known as Anthropic had its own philosopher on staff. Its own philosopher! This was supposed to shock the viewer. A company the size of Coca-Cola has its own philosopher on staff! But what shocked me was the fact that Anthropic did not have DOZENS of philosophers on staff -- or that it did not subject the implicit philosophical point of view of its algorithms to multiple critiques from the general public. If such companies are going to leverage Big Data to give us the apparent final word on everything, then it is hugely important upon which philosophies their answers are based, and that philosophy should not be invented by one single company-appointed philosopher. Sure, 2 + 2 is always going to be equal to 4 in abstract mathematics regardless of unspoken assumptions about the world, but the AI answers to questions about the propriety of drug use are going to depend entirely on the philosophies assumed, knowingly or not, by the AI algorithms.
Suppose that the algorithms are written under the assumption that all the "real" answers about things like drug use will come from science. Then the AI answers that the algorithms provide about drugs will serve to demonize drugs and emphasize their negative uses, since this is what science is paid to do these days in the west: to demonize psychoactive medicines by focusing only on misuse and worst-case scenarios, meanwhile never mentioning positive use, both extant and clearly possible with the use of a little psychological common sense. Indeed, the bylaws of the aptly named National Institute on Drug Abuse forbids the organization's employees from advocating for the legalization of any outlawed substance. Their real jobs are thus political in nature, not scientific. Unless AI "understands" these largely unspoken facts and takes them into account, its answers about drugs will always serve to support the many modern prejudices which are based on this government demonization campaign.
A fair algorithm would consider the fact that westerners have been shielded by media censorship from all positive talk about drug use since their childhood. Even should algorithms glean that fact from its use of inherently conservative Big Data, the weight that the algorithms assign to that fact will be based on assumptions, explicit or implicit, in those algorithms.
In other words, the question about the propriety of drug use raises a host of questions about which most people never consciously think. And we can be sure that AI will manifest the prejudices of the majority. And this, of course, is the nightmare of AI in general. It is innocent enough in telling us the scientific name of the leopard, but when it purports to give us final answers on subjects of human mind and mood, we can only expect blather in the age of the War on Drugs.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Author's Follow-up:
March 14, 2026
It makes common psychological sense that cocaine could be beneficial for many people. Common psychological sense. And yet when one searches online for "depression and cocaine," one sees endless papers by academics speculating on how cocaine could actually CAUSE depression. This is how unscientific science has become under the gun of the Drug Warrior. Scientists know that their research dollars depend on them demonizing drugs like cocaine, and they are happy to oblige.
Key Takeaways:
The philosophical premises of the AI company algorithms should be discussed and debated by the public.
AI reflects the prejudices of the majority.
AI will reflect the drug-related biases of indoctrinated Americans.
Thanks to the Drug War, folks are forced to become amateur chemists to profit from DMT, a drug that occurs naturally in most living things. This is the same Drug War that is killing American young people wholesale by refusing to teach safe use and regulate drug supply.
New article in Scientific American: "New hope for pain relief," that ignores the fact that we have outlawed the time-honored panacea. Scientists want a drug that won't run the risk of inspiring us.
According to Donald Trump's view of life, Jesus Christ was a chump. We should hate our enemies, not love them.
First we outlaw all drugs that could help; then we complain that some people have 'TREATMENT-RESISTANT DEPRESSION'. What? No. What they really "have" is an inability to thrive because of our idiotic drug laws.
3:51 PM · Jul 15, 2024
Drug prohibition is superstitious idiocy.
It is based on the following crazy idea:
that a substance that can be misused by a white young person at one dose for one reason must not be used by anybody at any dose for any reason.
"My faith votes and strives to outlaw religions that use substances of which politicians disapprove."
How would we even KNOW that outlawed drugs have no positive uses? We first have to incorporate them in a sane, empathic and creative way to find that out, and the drug war makes such a sensible approach absolutely impossible.
The International Observer says the "core issues" causing Mexican drug violence are: "corruption, inequality, and the demand for narcotics in the U.S." Wrong, wrong, wrong. The core issue is DRUG PROHIBITION.
SWAT raids have increased by 15,000 percent from the late 1970s to today, resulting in 50,000 to 80,000 SWAT raids annually in the US alone. --War On Us
There would be almost no relapses for those trying to get off drugs if all drugs were legal. Then we could use a vast variety of drugs to get us through those few hours of late-night angst that are the bane of the recidivist.
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