Picture this: A billionaire contrarian, fresh off bankrolling a vice president and peddling surveillance software to armies, takes the stage in San Francisco to whisper sweet nothings about the Antichrist. Not the horned harbinger of Revelation, mind you, but a bogeyman born from ... paperwork? Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder turned Palantir prophet, has launched a sold-out lecture series on the biblical end-times, where he solemnly warns that regulating AI isn't just bad policy, it's a devilish invitation to global tyranny. Because nothing says "apocalypse now" like bureaucrats with clipboards throttling your killer robots. It's equal parts Tolkien fanfic, Revelation remix, and venture-capital vapourware, a twisted theology that reeks of self-interest. In this discussion, I'll eviscerate Thiel's fever dream, chuckling all the way as we unpack how he's hijacked holy writ to hawk unregulated AI as humanity's holy grail.

Thiel's "Antichrist" series, four off-the-record gabfests hosted by the aptly named Acts 17 Collective ("Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society"), kicked off amid protests and secrecy worthy of a Dan Brown potboiler. Leaks from the first talk, scribbled by a software exec who got his ticket yanked faster than a buggy commit, paint a portrait of Thiel as doomsayer-in-chief: In our "existential threat"-obsessed era, he posits, fear of AI will birth a charismatic con artist (or system) promising "peace and safety" by slamming the brakes on tech progress. Regulate? That's the Antichrist's hook, ushering in a "one-world totalitarian state" that crushes freedom under the weight of safety standards.

Oh, the irony: This from a guy whose company, Palantir, just inked a £1.5 billion UK deal to supercharge the Ministry of Defence with AI target-spotting wizardry, potentially at the cost of British jobs, no less. Thiel's not wrong that we're in threat mode, wars and rogue AIs, but framing oversight as Satan's shortcut? It's like a tobacco exec citing Leviticus to lobby against lung-cancer warnings. Protesters outside his venue nailed it: If Palantir's battlefield algorithms "decide who lives or dies," that's the real beast-mode tech, not some EU data-privacy directive. Thiel's Antichrist isn't a false prophet; it's a straw man for regulators, conjured to keep the innovation casino spinning.

Here's where Thiel's real sleight-of-hand shines: He's not interpreting scripture; he's rewriting it in Python. Biblically, the Antichrist is the ultimate grifter, a silver-tongued tyrant who dazzles with miracles, enforces a mark-of-the-beast economy, and wages war on the saints (Revelation 13). Peace? Sure, but the counterfeit kind, global domination disguised as utopia, not paperwork.

Thiel flips the script: "Peace and safety" (a nod to 1 Thessalonians 5:3, where it signals sudden doom) becomes code for stifling innovation. Regulating AI? That's the Antichrist's ploy, exploiting catastrophe fears to birth a technophobic superstate. He's redefined the beast not as unchecked power, but as checked power, turning biblical warnings against hubris into a libertarian love letter. The Antichrist, in Thiel-speak, isn't the overreacher (like, say, an AI arms race); it's the brake-pedal busybody. Greta Thunberg? He once floated her as suspect No. 1 for her eco-alarmism. Now, it's anyone whispering "guardrails" on godlike algorithms.

This isn't devout exegesis; it's definitional drift, Silicon Valley style. Thiel's "Christian views" morph eschatology into an excuse for deregulation, blending Tolkien's seeing-stones (Palantir's namesake) with end-times paranoia. It's "oxymoronic," a Catholicism cosplaying as crypto-anarchism, where the devil's in the details... of FDA approvals.

No one's buying Thiel's sermon without spotting the sales funnel. His Founders Fund backs Anduril, the autonomous-weapons darling run by his lecture host's hubby. Thiel's Antichrist alarmism? It's the perfect foil for his £750 million MoD payday, regulate that, and poof, no more AI death-stars for democracy.

Silicon Valley's faith revival? It's less revival, more rebrand: Tech bros flocking to Thiel's "strange Catholicism" because it absolves their sins, surveillance states as sacraments, deregulation as divine mandate. As one leaker quipped before his ban: Thiel's casting regulators as the devil, but his own firm's battlefield omniscience fits the bill. If this is the Rapture, it's first-class for Founders Fund partners only.

Thiel's not alone in this eschatological entrepreneurship, SV's sprouting prayer apps and Bible-study boardrooms, with Thiel as high priest. But ridicule isn't just catharsis; it's a corrective. By redefining Antichrist as "annoying compliance officer," Thiel greenwashes AI's real risks, bias-fuelled wars, job apocalypses, existential oopsies into holy hurdles. It's a billionaire's bid to sacralise the status quo, where his "seeing stones" gaze unblinking.

So, Peter: If regulating AI is devil's work, what's unleashing it without safeguards? Divine? Or just another Founders Fund flip? Spare us the sermons, stick to spreadsheets. The real beast? Unfettered tech barons playing God. And unlike Thiel's lectures, that's no off-the-record revelation.

https://www.technocracy.news/peter-thiel-regulating-ai-hastens-the-antichrist/