Fringe cults have been talking about artificial intelligence in religious terms for decades[3]. Over the last couple of years, it seems like the discourse framework, if not exactly the message itself, have become more or less mainstream (at least in the tech space).
No one expressed this sentiment more candidly than Masayoshi Son (Softbank founder and CEO), which a few months ago cautioned us of “blasphemy against AI”. I’m not one to question people’s piousness; however, its important to note that Softbank has a $40B stake in OpenAI, so maybe the man had some worldly interest in the matter.
A couple of days ago, DHH (Ruby on Rails creator) expressed a similar thought in slightly less theological tones in his Rails World 2026 keynote: no one knows what exactly is going to happen, but you need to be optimistic about AI (pessimists are “fucking losers”).
Obie Fernandez of Hashrocket wrote a piece in a similar vein: like DHH, he’s “proud of not reading code anymore” and cautions AI-naysayers that “their career is dead”, and “having a temper tantrum” is useless. They are powerless against the “tidal wave” of AI.
See the pattern there? Besides the lack of empathy and basic table manners which we’ve come to expect from tech people, the tone is always of cosmic inevitability.
In the tech space, it seems increasingly hard to find unapologetic criticisms of AI (yet alone simply disliking AI). Pointing out any of the many issues with AI, from the absurd capex to the catastrophic power usage increase and its effects on global warming, is frowned upon.
If some form of criticism is unavoidable, it needs to be prefaced with a Credo to assuage the reader that you are not a heretic: “Don’t get me wrong, I use Claude every day; but, …”. Only then is the criticism tolerable (barely). Negative takes are not allowed - unless you want to be labeled a “fucking loser”.
The dogmas are being formed, and questioning dogmas is heresy.