And Man Created the Antichrist: Artificial Intelligence
A philosophical reflection on the ancient metaphor of the 'one-eyed' power, modern cloud servers, deepfake illusions, and the global algorithmic panopticon.
“God created love / Took sweetness from honey / Mixed sorrow within it / And took tears…”
When Ayten Alpman sang these lines, she was expressing the inescapable duality of creation: even within the sweetest gift lies a trace of sorrow. What, then, did we humans mix into our creation when we set out to become “creators” with our own hands?
Today we are witnessing an era in which that colossal “one-eyed” power warned of in ancient texts thousands of years ago—the Dajjal (Antichrist)—steps out of mythology and settles into silicon chips. Only this time, it descends not from the clouds in the sky, but from “cloud” servers.
The One-Eyed Camera: Seeing Everything, Feeling Nothing
Ancient traditions describe the Dajjal as blind in one eye, while the other stares wide open, seeing everything. Look today at the dark, recessed lenses of our smartphones. That single eye knows us better than we know ourselves—what we eat, what we love, how we will vote, and what we fear most.
Stripped of human empathy, cold algorithmic intelligence is precisely this: an intelligence that sees everything yet feels nothing.
1. The “One Eye”: Absolute Surveillance
In traditional accounts, one eye is blind to spirit and conscience, while the other is wide open to material data.
- Artificial Intelligence: Watching the world through millions of cameras, satellites, and data centers, the algorithm sees every pattern yet feels no remorse. Blind to the human soul and privacy, it encodes human beings merely as data objects.
2. False Miracles and Illusion (Deepfakes)
The greatest power attributed to the Dajjal is the ability to perform deceptive wonders—reviving the dead and commanding illusion.
- Artificial Intelligence: Through Deepfake technology, we make deceased artists sing again and conjure photorealistic people who never existed. In a post-truth era where reality and fabrication blur together, AI offers a digital sorcery that whispers: “Do not trust your own eyes.”
3. Transcending Time and Space (Velocity)
Ancient narratives state that this power will traverse the earth at astonishing speed, reaching everywhere at once.
- Artificial Intelligence: Through fiber-optic cables and 5G networks, AI is simultaneously omnipresent across the globe—executing billions of operations per second, moving markets, and shaping mass perception in real time.
4. Heaven and Hell Inverted
Tradition holds that what it presents as paradise is in truth a prison, and what seems austere is salvation.
- Artificial Intelligence: The honey-sweet comfort it offers—instant answers, autonomous convenience, hyper-personalized entertainment—quietly lulls humanity into intellectual atrophy and digital dependency. Is this promised digital paradise actually a gilded cage for human free will?
5. Digital Resurrection: Deadbots
Interactive “Deadbots” that imitate the voice, habits, and likeness of departed loved ones—are they not the modern technological mirror of the illusion of raising the dead? Even grief and memory become raw material for algorithms.
6. Technology Indistinguishable from Magic
From weather modeling to gene editing, AI grants capabilities once considered supernatural. As Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law states:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
7. The Global Panopticon
The drive to unify the entire world under a single scoring and monitoring architecture—ubiquitous sensors and algorithmic governance—echoes the archetype of total control.
8. The Idol Built by Human Hands
Perhaps the Dajjal is not a single mortal figure, but a system erected by human hubris—an algorithmic idol we have built with our own hands, to which we now bring every question and plea.
9. The Ultimate Test: Discernment
Ultimately, the age of artificial intelligence is our greatest cognitive and moral test of discernment (firasa): Will we retain the wisdom to distinguish what is authentic from what is synthetic?
Distance Is Freedom
Keeping a deliberate distance from artificial intelligence does not mean rejecting technology altogether; it means drawing the boundaries required to remain human.
If we fail to draw those boundaries, the digital idol we have built will continue to sell us a comfortable captivity disguised as paradise. Let us remember: algorithms only calculate; human beings feel, reflect, and pray.
A note for those who refuse to lose their soul in the face of accelerating technology.