The Golden Calf of Artificial Intelligence
Marc Cleiren
8 September 2025
I was raised Catholic, thankfully with a broad-minded outlook and an emphasis on the symbolic meaning of biblical stories. Some of these stories still speak powerfully in today’s turbulent times. What is happening now around trust and distrust in Artificial Intelligence recalls the story of the Golden Calf.
That calf was, according to the Biblical parable, constructed by the people fleeing misery in Egypt (the story being told in the book of Exodus). The people were suffering, uncertain, and searching for something to hold onto. When Moses, who was up on the mountain speaking with God, stayed away too long, fear took hold. The God who had first liberated them remained invisible, and uncertainty became unbearable. So, they melted down their golden jewellery and cast a calf to worship: a bull-calf: an already age old symbol of strength, security, and guidance, revered for centuries.
Then and Now
Something similar is happening with Artificial Intelligence. We too are melting the creation of human hands and minds, fusing together large language models from the “gold” we possess: our art, our knowledge, the very best of our human creativity. This living gold has been smelted into ever larger and more powerful AI systems. The CEOs of a handful of money- and energy-devouring corporations market their latest models as the ultimate source of salvation: near-eternal life, universal health and prosperity, the end of climate change, a guaranteed basic income—in short: heaven on earth. Faithful shareholders see their wealth rise, the tower of promise reaching higher into the skies with each new version. We’re almost there! The proprietor-prophets proclaim that with GPT-7, Claude 8, or Grok 6, today’s tangible technological miracles will finally be revealed as absolute Truth. Just a little more patience, just a little more investment, and superhuman knowledge will be within reach.
Among the AI-worshipping crowds stands a mixed multitude: some are swept along by the cultural tide but look on with dread; sceptics who doubt that this golden beast brings anything truly new; the fearful who believe it will enslave us; the desperate who worry humanity will grow ever duller and become helpless marionettes; and non-believers who refuse to accept that the calf can really transform their jobs or take over their work.
The Old Calf and the New
Both the biblical calf and today’s AI are not about the object itself, but about the trust people invest in them. All the melted personal gold did not make the calf divine. Likewise, AI, built from precious data and algorithms, in its current development is neither moral nor autonomous. What we project onto it is our longing for a higher intelligence than ourselves, one that might turn the dark tide of history in the making. Just as back then.
Longing for Certainty
At the core of every golden calf lies our human longing for certainty. The more threatened people feel, the more they crave simple explanations and easy solutions. In a world that feels incomprehensible, this can spill over into far-fetched conspiracy theories or scapegoating. Populist movements thrive among those who are afraid: seeking to “arm” themselves against threats by banishing them with simple narratives. A nasty side-effect is that people love to tear down what they do not understand, and to dehumanize anyone who disagrees with their view. Belief in AI can easily become such a “simple” answer.
Its modern miracles make us look not so very different from the tribes of old, who gratefully received beads and mirrors as if they were treasures. Look! AI writes my papers; it makes my schedules; it creates lifelike videos and photos! It gives me such wise advice!
Techno-Idolatry
The critique in Exodus was never that the people produced this art, but that they misplaced in it their trust, their hope, and their worship. The calf took the place of their relationship with the Eternal (even the word All can be easily confused with AI). Do we risk seeing Artificial Intelligence as a neutral, objective, superior authority—one that quietly replaces our human responsibility?
Our Responsibility: Public Ownership of AI
Just as the people were once involved in forging the calf, we too are collectively responsible for how AI is used. It is time for choices on AI to be made out in the open, not hidden away behind closed corporate doors. Investors, multinationals, and governments often have interests other than the well-being of ordinary people. Whose interests are being served? And what responsibility do we ourselves still carry? We should be able to make up our minds, also by having clear choices on the approach in our voting booths.
In my view, the only way to tame this growing calf is to place it under the authority of diverse, public, expert institutions—not simplistically, but decisive. That means universities and independent institutions that are regulated by legislative, executive, and judicial powers. In the Netherlands, we already have strong examples, like SURF, a national collaboration under democratic oversight, and at Leiden University’s IT Service Centre (ISSC), where morally regulated AI is being developed on local servers. The EU is also pushing forward with brave legislation Though inevitably imperfect, we must try to keep up, because by now our calf has already grown into a genetically modified bull.
In Conclusion
The Golden Calf and AI: both promise visible certainty in a world full of uncertainty. And therein lies the danger of idolatry—the loss of our critical awareness and moral responsibility.
The calf was made from the earth’s gold; AI from the “gold” of our data, smelted by AI companies into a dazzling whole. In both cases we see humanity blinded by the desire for quick, visible fixes. The challenge is not to reject technology, but to take an active role in answering the question: Where do we place our trust, and what responsibility do we take ourselves?
It would be a fine thing if, whichever government comes to power, it realized that only by giving AI a safe, sovereign, and privacy-protected home can this calf grow to become the finest horse in the stable.
Relevant literature
- Federico, C. M., Williams, A. L., & Vitriol, J. A. (2018). The role of system identity threat in conspiracy theory endorsement. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48(7), 927–938. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2495
- Fox N and Williams MN. Do stress and anxiety lead to belief in conspiracy theories? [version 2; peer review: 6 approved, 1 approved with reservations]. Routledge Open Res 2024, 2:30 (https://doi.org/10.12688/routledgeopenres.17925.2)
- Jolley, D., Douglas, K. M., & Sutton, R. M. (2018). Blaming a few bad apples to save a threatened barrel: The system‐justifying function of conspiracy theories. Political Psychology, 39(2), 465-478.
- Mao, J. Y., Zeng, Z. X., Yang, S. L., Guo, Y. Y., Wang, B., & van Prooijen, J. W. (2025). Why existential threats increase conspiracy beliefs: Evidence for the mediating roles of agency detection and pattern perception. British Journal of Psychology.
- Katholieke Bijbelstichting. (1995). De Bijbel. Willibrordvertaling. Katholieke Bijbelstichting.
- Van Prooijen, J. W., & Jostmann, N. B. (2013). Belief in conspiracy theories: The influence of uncertainty and perceived morality. European journal of social psychology, 43(1), 109-115.
- Whitson, J. A., & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception. Science, 322(5898), 115–117. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1159845