August 5, 2026

By Jamie Towey

Big Tech, why are you so obsessed with me? Like an obsessive ex, when will Big Tech get the hint that we’re just not that interested?

After Argentina breathed its last in the World Cup, I breathed a sigh of relief. No more commercials interrupting match play for Instagram teen accounts that promise social media is now safe for adolescents, or grainy footage of weather-beaten men ploughing fields or fixing cars, only for a jump scare at the end of the Anthropic logo (because AI is for tough blue-collar workers, duh).

Alas, the AI propaganda tour has continued apace.

Last week, Meta man Mark Zuckerberg ran an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for the “democratization” of AI. That same week, the CEO of the non-profit Open AI, Sam Altman, dropped by a podcast to caution us in his patented vocal fry of the need for decentralized AI. Are these two titans of progress showcasing their familiarity with the concept of subsidiarity articulated so beautifully by Pope Leo in his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas?

I doubt it. These men who control trillions of dollars, whose inventions and tinkering have forged our modern technological dystopia, are not writing editorials or working the podcast circuit to champion a better life for you and me or America’s elderly – they are fighting tooth and nail against regulation of the Promethean forces they have unleashed on the world.

Zuckerberg claims to offer us freedom. So does Altman. So do Marc Andreesen and Peter Thiel, two of the most prolific underwriters of the AI bull market. So, too, does Elon Musk, the man who has claimed the mantle of anti-Altman. Of course, what they offer is anything but freedom. Pope Leo’s aforementioned encyclical has a prediction for the shared ambitions of these men. Spoiler alert, read the Genesis account of the Tower of Babel. For some real-world foreshadowing, the last time Zuckerberg went on a PR rodeo like this, we got the Metaverse, which lost Meta $83 billion, but did give us some great memes.

Your radar should go up when you hear someone cavalierly invoke freedom. In just a decade, gambling, pornography, marijuana, and transgender surgeries for children all were foisted on us under the banner of freedom. In reality, freedom, as the great philosopher Thomas Aquinas wrote, is the ability to do the good. What our modern culture calls freedom would have been called “license” by the great philosophers. I’d go so far as to say that Big Tech’s invocation of freedom sounds more like slavery to their products, services, and Terms & Conditions.

I’ve talked to so many doctors, nurses, and caregivers who fear technology’s encroachment on their vocations, not merely because it could put them out of a job, but because it will undermine the very purpose of their fundamentally human profession. It will reduce them and their patients to cogs in a machine, numbers on a spreadsheet. AI doctors will help real doctors see more patients… except, the reason doctors struggle to see more patients is due to the commoditization of healthcare in the first place. Humanity is on trial in this age of the machine. Big Tech is spending billions of dollars on lobbying federal and state governments to grease the skids for more data centers, less regulation, and more freedom for them to enslave us in the name of – you guessed it – freedom.

Neither I nor Aging with Dignity advocates for specific policies or regulations regarding these ascendant technologies. All we offer are words of caution, plus encouragement. Yes, there is cause for concern. When the summoners of AI tell us what they think AI will become, believe them. Don’t buy their subsequent PR pivots when trillions of dollars are on the line. But be not afraid. We all must remember that AI and the siren songs of technology cannot fundamentally change what it means to be human. Each of us is made to love and be loved, in the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. For medical professionals and those who care for their elderly or ill neighbors, the most powerful protest against this brave new world is to boldly and unabashedly live by Mother’s words.

(The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Aging with Dignity and/or its Board of Directors.)