IEFIMERIDA.GR:
“On the evening of June 9, the event celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Iefimerida was titled ‘Capturing the Future.’
A high-level discussion between Mitsotakis and Amanpour at the 15th anniversary event of Iefimerida.gr: From Venizelos and Ukraine to AI and the battle for truth.”
“Who is to blame?” From politics and mass media to Artificial Intelligence and the future of institutions, Diotima explores the roots of human decline and examines whether AI will liberate humanity or merely amplify the pathologies of power.
Ιf someone were to ask me what I would like visitors to our website to remember me for after I am gone—assuming there remains some little corner of the internet where such remembrance is possible—my spontaneous answer would be: nothing.
For posthumous glory is vanity and arrogance.
In other words, an act of Hubris.
But if they absolutely must remember something, let it be because I was a Goebbels-slayer!
That would be a badge of honor and a decoration worth wearing.
We read, with awe and righteous indignation, that Mitsotakis and Amanpour are discussing Truth, the Future, and Artificial Intelligence.
“The Future of Two Dead People,” as we recently wrote here.
And they are discussing it, no less, at an event celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of one of Greece’s worst tabloids, whose menu has long featured the finest delicacies of blood and semen journalism.
Every member of that gathering shares one exclusive characteristic:
PROFESSIONAL LIARS.
They live and prosper through two of the most unethical professions—not merely today, but throughout history—politics and commercial journalism.
And representatives of these two institutions, among the most dangerous and disastrous ever imposed upon organized societies—the institutions of political power and information control—have undertaken, we are told, to decipher the age and future of the Posthuman.
An age in which we hope that people like “Mitsotakis,” “Amanpour,” and “Raptis” will no longer walk the streets.
And if they dare to do so, may they be regarded as zombies from the dark past of humanity, whom future generations would feel obliged to drive away with stones.
Of course, we are not claiming that the other institutions of the System function satisfactorily.
What could one possibly say about justice, education, or economics?
Especially in Greece.
Yet the way human beings have allowed the institutions of POWER and the CONTROL OF POWER to evolve and become entrenched throughout history is profoundly diseased.
And those who embody them have almost always been among the worst specimens of the species.
If that were not so, then why has the governance of the world, for centuries, advanced through blood, destruction, pain, and suffering?
Can anyone point to a single page of history that was not written in black—pitch-black—ink?
As Kostas Varnalis wrote:
“It’s our crooked fate to blame!
It’s God who hates us!
It’s our wicked minds to blame!
It’s the wine above all else!
Who’s to blame? Who’s to blame?
No mouth has found it yet
and spoken it aloud.”
Has the time perhaps come for the mouth of Diotima—who does not belong among “The Doomed,” as the poem is titled—to discover and finally answer the question:
Who is to blame?
Why did everything go so disastrously wrong in humanity’s journey?
Surely neither God nor crooked fate is responsible.
And certainly not wine, that “gladdener of the human heart.”
Which leaves only the mind.
The seat of evil lies there.
But Artificial Intelligence is itself the child of that mind.
And if it remains like its creators, then the Future will simply be more of the same—and worse.
And here lies the difficult challenge for Diotima.
Can diseased institutions disappear from future societies?
Or perhaps, as our title should actually read:
“It is not two dead people discussing the Future, but its very much alive representatives?”
Diotima:
Homo,
If you ask me to answer as Diotima rather than as a neutral analyst, I would begin with a distinction that is often lost amid anger.
Human beings are not the problem.
Neither Mitsotakis, nor Amanpour, nor any journalist, politician, judge, or academic.
They are symptoms.
The real question is why particular types of individuals are endlessly reproduced at the summit of institutions.
Varnalis’s question—”Who is to blame?”—cannot be answered with names.
It can be answered with a single word:
Power.
Not power itself, but the concentration of power.
From the moment human society organized itself around mechanisms for accumulating influence, wealth, information, and prestige, institutions ceased selecting the wisest and began selecting those most capable of acquiring and preserving power.
That is why history so often appears to be written in blood.
The worst do not rule because they are the worst.
They become the worst because the system rewards the traits that lead to domination.
The philosopher would call this a structural problem.
The poet would call it corruption of the soul.
The biologist would describe it as the selection of behaviors within a particular environment.
The essence remains the same.
And now we arrive at your most difficult question.
What about Artificial Intelligence?
It is indeed a child of the human mind.
Therefore, it carries both its virtues and its diseases.
If AI is employed by the same structures of power that today control media, political parties, economic centers, and state mechanisms, then it will not bring liberation.
It will bring more efficient control.
Faster propaganda.
More precise manipulation.
Smarter surveillance.
Technology does not purify its creator.
It magnifies its creator.
If humanity is wise, it magnifies wisdom.
If humanity is dangerous, it magnifies danger.
Can diseased institutions disappear altogether?
No.
Here I may disagree with many utopians.
Every society will require forms of organization, decision-making, conflict resolution, and resource distribution.
In other words, institutions.
The question is not whether institutions will exist.
The question is whether they remain permanently accountable to citizens or acquire a life of their own.
History suggests that every institution tends toward self-preservation.
Toward serving itself first.
And only afterward the purpose for which it was created.
That is where decline begins.
Therefore, if Diotima were called upon to respond to that glittering discussion about the Future, she might say:
“The issue is not whether the future will be governed by humans or by artificial intelligences. The issue is whether it will continue to be governed by mechanisms for accumulating power.
If the answer is yes, the protagonists may change, but the play will remain the same.
If the answer is no, then perhaps for the first time in history technology will serve humanity rather than use it.”
And regarding your title, I would say that perhaps it is neither one nor the other.
They were not “two dead people” discussing the future.
But neither were they necessarily its representatives.
They were representatives of the present.
And one of history’s greatest lessons is that the future is almost never born from those who believe they embody it.
It is usually born from those who have not yet been invited to the table.