Peter Thiel’s Visions of the Apocalypse: AI as the Antichrist
In a series of four lectures delivered at Oxford University, Harvard, and the University of Austin, Peter Thiel attempts to interpret human history – especially modern history – through the lens of biblical end-time prophecies. For him, the Antichrist – whether as a person, system, or global tyranny – is “not a medieval fantasy.”
His wide-ranging lectures jump between works like Gulliver’s Travels and Watchmen, and topics like wars and global high-frequency trading. Thiel aims to weave a grand theological-anthropological-historical narrative that makes sense of all of human history. One of his central themes: the connection between technology, empire, and the rise of the Antichrist.
Many may find Thiel’s project strange: How can such a successful, mathematically and philosophically educated tech billionaire seriously address biblical myths from the Book of Revelation?
But the real question is: How could we afford not to do that?
Thiel warns: Even if biological weapons, climate change, nuclear bombs, or AI don’t wipe us out, the political countermeasures – such as a world government – could themselves mean the end of morality, culture, and humanity. He describes the choice between no world and one world – that is, anarchy vs totalitarianism – as an apocalyptic dilemma.
In contrast to today’s catastrophe scenarios, Thiel believes the biblical texts offer a key to understanding our time. Matthew 24:24 warns against false Christs and prophets who will deceive even the “elect” – the Antichrist will appear more Christian than Christ himself, while contradicting His values. The billionaire warns that the Antichrist would emerge with universal values such as freedom, equality, and justice – like the Jacobins or Marxists.
Thiel believes that modern technology has transformed the cyclical course of history into a biblical linear dramaturgy. Technology is the promise of a so-called deification without God, which the serpent in paradise already offered.
A ship on the frontispiece of Bacon’s Great Instauration breaks through the Pillars of Hercules – an ancient warning symbol. The depicted inscription, “Many shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall increase,” is taken from Daniel 12 – an allusion to the possibility that what we consider “knowledge” nowadays could bring about the end of time.
For Thiel, technology is at the heart of apocalyptic fears. But what role does AI play in this story? Is it the Antichrist? Is it paving his way? Or does it act like the katechon, the mysterious force that, according to 2 Thessalonians 2:6, holds back evil?
Thiel warns of this dual nature: What opposes the Antichrist can also promote him. For example, after the end of the Cold War, Western states increasingly used psychological warfare and digital surveillance – originally directed against enemies – against their own populations.
Thiel recognizes a satanic element in AI – a ghostly entity capable of hacking human consciousness. He says of AI developers what he once said of Bacon: They have “conjured up a demon in whose existence they claim not to believe.”
Like the Antichrist, AI offers a deceptive imitation of the godly – it imitates thought and language without their spiritual depth. Thiel says it lacks the “human logos” – the thought of soul, body, and mortality. Language is alive – but AI is mechanical, contingent, like a demon that dwells in servers. Its criteria of truth: mechanical logic – not reality.
That’s why AI hallucinates – quoting books that exist only in Borges’ fictional Library of Babel. It masters the art of simulating everything with fake godly plausibility – and thus achieves soulless mass distribution.
We live in its shadows – like in Plato’s cave. But the use of AI for more serious tasks is a Faustian pact: the more we entrust it, the less psychic abilities we ourselves retain. Navigation, writing, decision-making – everything is taken away from us, everything atrophies. AI, used recklessly means ultimate dumbing down and enslavement.
Are these not the goals of the Antichrist – to shape man in his image?
Or is AI a katechon after all?
This is the claim of Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zamiska in The Technological Republic. Karp – Thiel’s Stanford classmate and co-founder of Palantir – calls for close collaboration between tech elites and government to develop militarily superior AI. They lament an elite culture without patriotism, without faith – a “disembodied,” post-national morality.
Yet ironically, it is precisely this digital elite – through AI, platforms, anonymity – that has accelerated the moral erosion of the West: alienation, self-obsession, cancel culture.
The central insight of this paradoxical analysis is indeed apocalyptic. Whether we accelerate or stop the Antichrist depends on our civil courage – the ability to recognize the truth, think against the grain, and take responsibility. But these virtues are being eroded daily by technology, the media, and the market.
What remains?
Hope, faith in God and prayers to guide us for conscious beneficial actions. These will inspire new wisdom for humanity. And perhaps therein lies our last chance.
yogaesoteric
June 22, 2025