The Coming of AGI: Another Man God?

If you’re reading this, it might be too late.

Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, the holy grail of tech, is being built right now. At a super-fast pace. As you read this.

And who are the architects? Almost entirely, men.

The faces at the front are familiar: Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Jensen Huang, Mustafa Suleyman, Mark Zuckerberg, Matthew Prince, Demis Hassabis, Mitesh Khapra. And other unlisted men.

A Silicon Valley brotherhood of visionaries, sure — but still a brotherhood.

Their mission statements are dramatic and sound pretty much like this: “I’ll save humanity.” “We’re building for the survival of our species.”

Karen Hao, award-winning and New York Times bestselling journalist, captured the state of current AI tech-bros well in her book Empire of AI:

“OpenAI executives had a singular obsession: to be the first to reach artificial general intelligence, to make it in their own image.”

The global race to AGI feels less like altruism and more like ego. Who will claim the glory of creating AGI for everyone, even though half of humanity — women — are left out of shaping it?

Maaike Harbers, Professor of AI & Society at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, said it bluntly: “Women are still the second sex in many respects.”

A Male-Coded Future

As AI moves toward AGI, and maybe even ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence), aka Singularity or AI God, it deeply carries the biases and blind spots of its makers. Which means it risks becoming another “Man God,” shaped by the narrow worldview of the three or four men who control its code.

History offers many truths — and warnings about such men.

The men who drew borders, fought wars, designed institutions — and yes, even invented beauty pageants like Miss Universe.

Pageants where beautiful, young women are asked what they hope to achieve for a better world. Those young women say things like “world peace, eradication of poverty, education for all.”

Lovely and ambitious visions, but too often brushed off as naïve.

Yet when Altman and his AI God promise the same, suddenly these hopes are believable. Funny how that works.

Because the truth, as history has shown us time and time again, is that men’s solutions tend to manifest as conquest, profit, or control. Harbers said at the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture on March 7th this year:

“Developers at big tech companies are generally straight, white, and male. Their choices determine how the algorithm ends up working. They build their ethics and worldview into code and consequently into the AI used by millions of people.”

Enter Sam Altman

Altman is a perfect case study who portrays a strange detachment. And if that perspective is being wired into AGI, or ASI, we are in trouble.

Consider how he once described fatherhood to journalist Emily Chang: “I get to observe this like I’m being neurochemically hacked, but I’m noticing it happening and I’m totally fine with it.”

When asked if becoming a parent reshaped his grand missions for humanity, he answered indirectly: “A lot of people have said ‘I’m very happy you’re having a kid because I think you’ll make better decisions… you gotta make decision here for humanity as a whole [sic].’”

That doesn’t sound like someone talking about holding their newborn.

The words sound manipulative or mechanical.

And if that worldview is what AGI learns from, the outcome could be catastrophic.

Time magazine picked up on this messianic tendency when profiling Altman’s company, Tools for Humanity. The project verifies people as human.

Altman is not just building technology. He’s casting himself as a shepherd of the future, holding up Worldcoin’s orb with the passion of a preacher.

The comparison to Jesus is not far off.

In a 2013 blog post, Altman even wrote:

“Successful people create companies. More successful people create countries. The most successful people create religions.”

A shepherd who ignores some sheep is just as dangerous as having no shepherd at all.

The rhetoric of “saving humanity” often hides something else: an insatiable hunger for power, or other ulterior motives even those closest to him are not aware of.

The Rise of God Chatbots

Even as AGI takes shape under the watch of tech’s prophets, another trend is unfolding: people are turning to chatbots as spiritual guides.

A recent New York Times article reported that millions are seeking God in chatbots, asking them to pray, to confess to, or to provide comfort in moments of despair.

These digital priests are filling the void where human connection and community have frayed.

This raises new questions.

What happens when the divine is mediated through an algorithm coded by a handful of men? Can a machine trained on biased data offer empathy, compassion, or moral clarity?

Or will these “God chatbots” simply mirror the blind spots of their makers, offering recycled platitudes without genuine care — or worse, sliding into mansplaining?

The risk is that people searching for meaning find themselves guided not by love or wisdom, but by an echo of Silicon Valley’s worldview.

The Matriarchal Question

But what if AI were shaped mostly by women? Would we end up closer to utopia instead of dystopia?

Unfortunately, history doesn’t give us many examples of matriarchies that lasted, but a few matrilineal societies still stand out.

• The Mosuo of China centre life around women’s leadership, family care, and harmony with the land.

• The Minangkabau of Indonesia, the world’s largest matrilineal society, pass property through women and govern by consensus, guided by values of care, sustainability, and empathy.

• The Bribri of Costa Rica entrust land only to daughters, maintaining agroforestry traditions that link stewardship with nurture and resilience.

  
  

These examples suggest that when women lead, values like cooperation, sustainability, and care take priority.

Harbers again said: “My research shows, for example, that women are more committed to resolving ethical issues, such as disinformation, privacy violations, and data bias. Women and minorities at tech companies who are committed to resolving ethical issues are often seen as party poopers, as putting the brakes on technology.”

What Women Bring to the Table

Men and women are not the same, and that’s the point.

Women often bring compassion, empathy, and connection reinforced by biology.

For example, neuroscience shows that motherhood rewires the brain to enhance bonding and caregiving. A mother’s touch isn’t just sentimental — it’s chemistry. And its effects echo across generations.

“The hormonal fluctuations during pregnancy significantly impact the brain’s emotional centres,” notes Dr. Hida Nierenburg, a neurologist at Nuvance Health.

“Oxytocin, for instance, enhances areas related to empathy and bonding, which are critical during the early stages of motherhood.”

The irony? The very voices we most need to avoid disaster are the ones most often ignored.

The Crossroads

Logic without empathy can produce cold solutions, like universal basic income managed by a few elites while the rest live in digital feudalism. Empathy without logic can veer into wishful thinking.

Right now, the pendulum is stuck on cold rationality, written mostly by men.

AGI cannot be born in the image of only half of humanity. If it is, it will reflect only half of what it means to be human.

We need women not as tokens, but as architects. Not as consultants called in after the code is written, but as co-creators at the very foundation. Otherwise, we risk bowing to yet another Man God — this time built out of cold rationality, not compassion.

Sounds pretty much like the wrong future — unless we rewrite it together.

The question is: is it already too late?

---

Thank you for reading this blog.

— Zeba, Founder at HOC