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.
If we can go overseas to burn poppy plants, then Islamic countries should be free to come to the United States to burn our grape vines.
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.
Outlawing opium was the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
Ketamine is like any other drug. It has good uses for certain people in certain situations. Nowadays, people insist that a drug be okay in every situation for everybody (especially American teens) before they will say that it's okay. That's crazy and anti-scientific.
I'm told antidepressant withdrawal is fine because it doesn't cause cravings. Why is it better to feel like hell than to have a craving? In any case, cravings are caused by prohibition. A sane world could also end cravings with the help of other drugs.
There are times when it is clearly WRONG to deny kids drugs (whatever the law may say). If your child is obsessed with school massacres, he or she is an excellent candidate for using empathogenic meds ASAP -- or do we prefer even school shootings to drug use???
Here is a typical user report about a drug that the DEA tells us has no positive uses whatsoever:
"There is a profoundness of meaning inherent in anything that moves." (reported in "Pikhal" by Alexander Shulgin)
If we let "science" decide about drugs, i.e. base freedom on health concerns, then tea can be as easily outlawed as beer. The fact that horses are not illegal shows that prohibition is not about health. It's about the power to outlaw certain "ways of being in the world."
Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.
If opium and cocaine were re-legalized, hospital buildings would no longer be the secular cathedrals of our time. Some of that wealth would actually go to healthy people.
Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.
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. 
(up)