Oxford philosopher Carissa Véliz: using AI to predict is like reading animal entrails

CarissaVeliz · x · 2026-09-30

Oxford philosopher and privacy scholar Carissa Véliz discusses her new book Profecía, which examines humanity's obsession with prediction and Silicon Valley's AI 'oracles'. She opens with the story of Jeanne Calment, history's oldest person, to illustrate life's unpredictability, and argues that 'using AI to predict is like looking for the future in the entrails of dead animals' — many predictions, she says, are 'orders camouflaged as descriptions'. A philosophical critique of the oracle-like status AI has been granted.

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