Prophetic memory: AI intermediaries and the end of the world

Abstract A new breed of prophets – intermediaries and pastoral bros of an AI industry with metaphysical aspirations – has surfaced on the global stage during troubled times. They make great promises, offer predictions and warnings, and stake out directions for humanity. This article argues that they do so by invoking the implicit collective memory of the apocalyptic imaginary known from ancient Jewish apocalyptic writings and, more specifically, by reenacting what we call prophetic memory. Through close readings in the tradition of biblical exegesis coupled with philosophical and critical hermeneutics, we trace strong AI narratives of doom and salvation to a range of media forms such as Twitter/X postings, books, interviews, journalistic feature articles, and reporting. Through these media, AI prophets speak of the end times while simultaneously offering a new beginning for humankind, not unlike the ancient prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Prophetic memory, we submit, is furthermore a mode of ‘collective future thought’ and an instantiation of the ‘remembering-imagining-system’. While its purpose is to create stability for a particular vision for the future, there is also a productive ambivalence of order and disorder at work within the apocalyptic AI imaginary. To question this ambiguous yet extremely powerful fixture on the human horizon, there is a need, we argue, for bothering the political-religious dimensions of the hegemonic AI imaginary and for scrutinizing how the AI industry founds its power base on the clout of prophetic memory – in a time of crisis in which many look for guidance and direction.