# The Tower of Babel, Tyranny, and AI > Source: > Published: 2026-08-16 17:25:09+00:00 ###### [Artificial Intelligence](/us/basics/artificial-intelligence) # The Tower of Babel, Tyranny, and AI ## Amassing information often precedes the centralization of power. Posted August 16, 2026 [ Reviewed by Jessica Schrader ](/us/docs/editorial-process) ### Key points - The Tower of Babel story addresses the desire of some human beings to dominate others. - The amassing of information often precedes the imposition of tyranny. - AI provides unprecedented opportunities to centralize information. In the Book of Genesis Tower of Babel story, members of a united human race, all speaking the same language, come to a land in the east where they decide to build for themselves a tower that will reach all the way up into the heavens, enabling them to “make a name for themselves.” God, recognizing this as but the beginning of what such a united, monoglot humanity would do, decides to scatter them all over the earth and render them incapable of understanding one another. The place is called Babel, because the speech of each proved to be incomprehensible to the others, like mere babbling. The most common interpretation treats Babel as an origin myth, intended to explain why the different peoples of the earth speak different languages. In another common view, it represents an indictment of pride, the notion that human beings could become self-sufficient and cast off all use for God. A third view regards it as an even greater rebellion, a human effort to transform human beings into divinities and thereby completely supplant the divine. A fourth finds in it a reminder that the encounter between the human and God cannot be engineered by humans and always depends utterly on divine action. ## Relevance of the Babel Story in the Age of Surveillance Technology Yet there is another interpretation that deserves special [attention](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/attention) in our own day, when new technologies are making it possible for authorities to monitor the location, movements, purchases, plans, private conversations, and even thoughts of individuals to a far greater extent than ever before. Cities are peppered with cameras that track license plates and recognize faces; the universal [adoption](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/adoption) of cellphones provides ready access to nearly everyone’s data and voice transmissions; new technologies can even monitor heart rate, body temperature, and brain waves, providing insight into who might be nervous or [lying](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/deception). How will the world’s dictators and would-be autocrats respond to such capabilities? Will they scrupulously eschew them, out of a deep and abiding dedication to protecting and preserving their citizens’ political liberties? Or will they take whatever steps necessary to install and exploit such surveillance technologies to their full potential, in order to amass and wield power? Suppose, for example, that all the information that cellphones are capable of harvesting could be collected, collated, and analyzed by [AI](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/artificial-intelligence), providing on-demand detailed reports about each person’s activities. The Babel story’s use of phrases such as “one language” and “same words” may have more than a merely linguistic connotation. Perhaps it is referring to an ideology. Consider Leninism, which in the early years of the Soviet Union sought to create a one-party state, ban factions, and introduce the red terror. In order to create a more perfect union, Lenin argued, opposing points of view needed to be repressed and political rivals needed to be imprisoned or executed. No threats to Bolshevik power were to be tolerated. ## Babel as a Warning Against Ideological and Political Monopolies The Hebrew Scriptures are full of warnings about the dangers of autocracy, expressed in the texts as kingship. By the time of the prophet Samuel, the people of Israel had lived free of the rule of an earthly king since they fled Pharaoh’s rule in Egypt. Yet the people cried out for such a ruler, someone around whom their sense of national [identity](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/identity) could coalesce and who could lead them in battle. All their neighbors had kings, and they wanted one, too. In short, the covenant with God was not enough. Yet Samuel warned them that kings would be selfish and sinful, exploiting their labor and imposing heavy taxes. The largely unchecked power of kings would only magnify and perpetuate the worst human tendencies. The Tower of Babel story may be read as a warning against autocracy and ideology. Perhaps it was not all people but only some people, those who coveted power over others, who wanted to build a tower, and perhaps they saw this project as a means of uniting people under a single ideology. Rather than allow people to scatter over the earth, each family and village tending to itself, they wanted to bind everyone to their own purpose. The tower, a symbol of this unification, would raise not all men but only those who sat at the top, commanding everyone else. It would be a monument not to humankind but to the power of a handful of men, elevating but a crafty few. God, seeing the people united around this one language, this one ideology, sees that building the tower is but the first step in the rulers’ exploitation of the people. So long as the people know only one ideology, one way of understanding, assessing, and acting in the world, they will be fodder for tyranny. What they need are other languages, other accounts, other ways of finding meaning in life. What matters most is not legitimizing a dominant political order but living in accordance with a higher, divine order, one that instead of shoehorning all thought and communication into the same system tolerates and even celebrates diverse points of view.