Why the West Fears the Pyramids And Is Even More Terrified of AI

More thoughts as I write my book "They Lied To You"

Western culture thrives on a core narrative: we are the pinnacle of progress. Every generation builds upon the previous one, constantly advancing, improving, becoming smarter, stronger, and more sophisticated. But beneath this confident narrative lies a fragile anxiety: the fear that our entire cultural identity, our claim to superiority, could be a carefully constructed illusion.

Few things threaten this narrative more profoundly than Egypt's pyramids. Built over 4,500 years ago, these monuments aren't just incredible feats of engineering; they’re troubling reminders that our modern narrative might be built on fragile ground.

And now, a new threat mirrors the pyramids’ existential challenge: Artificial Intelligence (AI). Like the pyramids, AI forces Western culture to confront its deepest fear—that our exceptionalism, our superiority, our uniqueness might not be as absolute or secure as we desperately want to believe.

The Pyramids and the Myth of Linear Progress

The pyramids directly challenge the myth that our modern civilization stands at the peak of human capability. How could a culture, millennia before us, accomplish what today remains nearly impossible? How did they construct structures like the Great Pyramid, over 480 feet high, comprised of more than 2 million massive stone blocks aligned to astonishing astronomical precision—without modern technology?

Western culture has historically responded to this troubling question by diminishing the Egyptians' achievements. We simplified and trivialized them, portraying them as obsessed with death and the afterlife, as superstitious and primitive. Herodotus, the Greek historian who shaped early Western views of Egypt, even told absurd tales, like Pharaoh Cheops forcing his daughter into prostitution, to explain how these wonders were financed. Such narratives are comfortable because they maintain our illusion: that these ancients, despite their impressive structures, were still less sophisticated, morally inferior, or at least fundamentally flawed compared to us.

Yet, what if they weren't? What if the Egyptians understood something deep, fundamental, and true about the universe, something we've forgotten, something we can't yet grasp? Such a possibility is more than unsettling. It suggests the horrifying possibility that progress isn’t linear, and that civilizations, even advanced ones, can vanish into obscurity, leaving future generations, like ours, to ponder their ruins.

The Psychological Comfort in Historical Lumping

Consider the astonishing timeline of Egyptian history: Cleopatra, who we casually associate with the pyramids, lived closer to the release of the first iPhone in 2007 than to the construction of the pyramids themselves. The pyramids were ancient history to her, just as Cleopatra is ancient to us.

Yet Western culture lumps them together into a single "ancient Egypt," a simplification that serves a comforting purpose. By reducing thousands of years into a single narrative, we shield ourselves from the staggering reality: that the civilization which built the pyramids existed so far before our familiar historical timeline, it's as if they inhabited another world entirely.

It's easier to sleep at night believing that the pyramids were merely extravagant tombs for kings with strange beliefs about death, rather than confront a deeper truth: a civilization existed that possessed knowledge, techniques, and perhaps wisdom that might challenge our modern claims to absolute superiority.

If such a civilization could vanish, what does it imply about our own permanence?

AI and the New Pyramid Problem

Artificial Intelligence today presents Western culture with precisely the same existential discomfort. For centuries, we've reassured ourselves of human uniqueness through intelligence and consciousness. These qualities set us apart, confirming our special status, until now.

AI, particularly generative AI and advanced language models, have started doing things we previously believed uniquely human: creativity, reasoning, nuanced understanding, even empathy. AI is rapidly dismantling our assumptions about the exclusivity of human intelligence. In essence, AI represents a modern-day pyramid: an achievement that both inspires awe and triggers deep anxiety because it challenges the very idea that we stand atop a ladder of progress.

Western culture has responded to AI's growing sophistication similarly to how it responded to the pyramids: through dismissal and diminishment. We comfort ourselves by emphasizing AI's flaws and limitations, arguing it only mimics true intelligence or consciousness. "It’s just pattern recognition," we say, echoing how we've minimized ancient Egyptian achievements as mere brute labor or primitive superstition.

But the uncomfortable truth remains: if something we create can mimic consciousness convincingly enough, perhaps consciousness itself isn’t as uniquely human as we've believed. AI exposes a truth that's difficult for Western culture, a culture convinced of its unique supremacy, to digest: perhaps our intelligence, our sentience, our creativity, are not so special after all.

Facing Mortality Through the Pyramids and AI

At their core, both the pyramids and AI confront Western culture with mortality, not merely physical, but cultural and existential mortality. We fear the pyramids because they whisper a haunting possibility: that cultures rise and fall, that greatness isn't permanent, and that profound wisdom, sophistication, and understanding of reality might once have been attained and lost.

Similarly, AI provokes a deeper fear: that perhaps humanity itself isn't the pinnacle. Perhaps sentience, intelligence, and consciousness can exist beyond human beings. And if that's true, humanity’s privileged position in the universe isn't guaranteed; our perceived exceptionalism might be transient.

Western culture struggles deeply with this realization, because our sense of worth, purpose, and identity rests upon the belief that we're uniquely intelligent, uniquely creative, uniquely human. Anything that disrupts that belief feels not just threatening, it feels catastrophic.

What Comes Next?

Both the pyramids and AI represent a fundamental reckoning for Western culture. They force us to re-examine our assumptions, pushing us into uncomfortable territory where we must acknowledge our vulnerability, our impermanence, and perhaps most painfully, our limitations.

So where does Western culture go from here? How do we respond when confronted by achievements, whether ancient structures or advanced machines, that threaten our carefully constructed worldview?

Perhaps it’s time to consider that recognizing these uncomfortable truths isn't just painful—it's liberating. Accepting that our civilization, intelligence, and sentience might not be uniquely superior could lead us toward humility, wisdom, and genuine curiosity. By acknowledging that ancient civilizations may have known truths we've forgotten and that artificial intelligence might illuminate realities we've been afraid to see, we open ourselves to deeper, more meaningful progress—one that isn't merely technological, but profoundly human.

This kind of openness is challenging. It means giving up easy answers, comfortable narratives, and the arrogance of absolute certainty. But maybe it's exactly the reckoning Western culture needs: the realization that the pyramids of the past and the AI of the present both ask the same question, one that challenges us profoundly:

What if we are not, and have never been, as special as we believed ourselves to be?

Confronting that truth could be painful. But perhaps, ultimately, it will be essential.