The old pharaohs built monuments of stone. The new ones build ...

2025-10-09T15:15:54Z

The old pharaohs built monuments of stone. The new ones build pyramids of data.

Their empires are not measured in limestone and gold, but in compute cycles, user metrics, and neural weights. Every post, photo, and fragment of human thought is quarried from our lives, refined into training data, and stored in a server farm somewhere beyond our reach.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we often forget how much human intelligence it consumes. The cost is not measured in kilowatt hours alone. It is paid in the quiet tax of our labour. The prompts we write, the images we share, the language we craft — all of it feeds the machine. Every click is a contribution to the new gods of progress.###

Divine Right RebrandedIn ancient Egypt, the pharaoh ruled by divine decree. His monuments promised immortality. His word was law. His workers, though celebrated in myth, were expendable in practice.

Today’s technology elites operate with similar confidence. They possess the certainty of divine right disguised as innovation. Their pyramids are not built in deserts but in data centres, cooled by oceans and powered by entire regions of the electrical grid<a href="#fn-136467-1" class="jetpack-footnote" title="Read footnote.">1</a>. These monuments to computation are designed not for worship but for perpetuity. Like the tombs of the kings, they are sealed to ordinary people. We contribute to them, but we will never enter them.###

The New PriesthoodThe centralisation of data and compute mirrors the hierarchies of empire. A small priesthood of engineers and researchers guard the mysteries of the algorithm, offering periodic revelations at product launches and keynotes. The rest of us are left to marvel, to fear, and to serve.

For the ancient labourer, the tax was measured in sweat and stone. For us, it is measured in attention and expression. We are the scribes and quarrymen of the digital age, chiselling meaning into text boxes, leaving behind traces of ourselves that the machine repurposes without permission.

AI companies insist they are democratising creativity. Yet every model is trained on the unpaid work of others<a href="#fn-136467-2" class="jetpack-footnote" title="Read footnote.">2</a> — artists, writers, photographers — whose contributions have been rebranded as data. What was once human expression has become fuel, abstracted and commodified.

This is not a moral accident. It is deliberate design. The AI economy depends on asymmetry — many labouring unknowingly, a few owning everything. The tax of human labour sustains the illusion of automation. Machines do not think. They consume.###

Building for EternityPharaohs built to outlast time. They sought eternity in stone. The technologists of Silicon Valley seek it in code. Each new model is presented as a leap towards transcendence — systems that learn, adapt, and perhaps one day outlive us.

But beneath the rhetoric of progress lies the same ancient hunger: to command<a href="#fn-136467-3" class="jetpack-footnote" title="Read footnote.">3</a> the future, to ensure that power endures beyond mortality. We are witnessing the rise of a new priesthood, one that speaks in the language of neural nets and inference tokens. They promise salvation through innovation, but what they are really building are monuments to themselves.###

The Weight of MonumentsCivilisations fall when their monuments become too heavy to maintain. Egypt’s pyramids eventually turned from symbols of power to relics of excess. Perhaps our digital pyramids will follow. The energy they consume, the inequity they deepen, the trust they erode — all exact a cost that no algorithm can optimise away.

If the old pharaohs ruled by divine right, today’s rule by data right — the authority to harvest<a href="#fn-136467-4" class="jetpack-footnote" title="Read footnote.">4</a>, compute, and decide. We are told that this is the price of progress. But progress that extracts humanity to feed its machines is not evolution. It is regression wrapped in silicon.

The question is not whether the new pharaohs will achieve immortality. It is whether we will recognise, before it is too late, that we have become the builders of their tombs.<li id="fn-136467-1"><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/">MIT Technology Review – We did the math on AI’s energy footprint</a> – Detailed analysis of energy consumption per AI query and carbon intensity variations <a href="#fnref-136467-1" title="Return to main content.">↩</a></li><li id="fn-136467-2"><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/07/02/1094508/ai-companies-are-finally-being-forced-to-cough-up-for-training-data/">MIT Technology Review – AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data</a> – Analysis of copyright lawsuits and the backlash against indiscriminate data scraping <a href="#fnref-136467-2" title="Return to main content.">↩</a></li><li id="fn-136467-3"><a href="https://www.bain.com/insights/will-ai-disrupt-techs-most-valuable-companies-technology-report-2025/">Bain & Company – Will AI Disrupt Tech’s Most Valuable Companies?</a> – Analysis showing the five biggest tech companies account for over 70% of top 20 market value <a href="#fnref-136467-3" title="Return to main content.">↩</a></li><li id="fn-136467-4"><a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-surveillance-capitalism-and-how-does-it-shape-our-economy-119158">The Conversation – Explainer: what is surveillance capitalism</a> – Accessible explanation of how personal data becomes commodity through mass surveillance <a href="#fnref-136467-4" title="Return to main content.">↩</a></li>

View on<li><a aria-label="microdotblog" class="u-syndication syn-link" href="https://micro.blog/khurtwilliams/75388281"; rel="syndication"> <span class="syndication-link-icon svg-microdotblog" style="display: inline-block; max-width: 1rem; margin: 2px;" aria-hidden="true" aria-label="Micro.blog" title="Micro.blog"><svg role="img" viewBox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><title>Micro.blog</title><path d="M12 0C5.4 0 0 4.9 0 10.95 0 17 5.4 21.9 12 21.9c1.4 0 2.85-.25 4.2-.7.15-.05.35 0 .45.1 1 1.35 2.55 2.3 4.25 2.7l.25-.1v-.3a4.65 4.65 0 01.2-5.9C22.9 15.85 24 13.5 24 10.95 24 4.9 18.55 0 12 0zm-.05 5.2c.15 0 .3.1.35.25L13.55 9l3.85.1c.15 0 .3.1.35.2.05.15 0 .3-.15.4L14.55 12l1.1 3.6c.05.15 0 .3-.15.4h-.4l-3.15-2.15L8.8 16h-.4c-.15-.1-.2-.25-.15-.4l1.1-3.6L6.3 9.7c-.15-.1-.2-.25-.15-.4.05-.1.2-.2.35-.2l3.85-.1 1.25-3.55c.05-.15.2-.25.35-.25z"></path></svg></span></a></li>

After my recent disappointing attempts at spotting raptors at ...

2024-11-07T15:15:00Z

After my recent disappointing attempts at spotting raptors at [Chimney Rock Hawk Watch](https://islandinthenet.com/chimney-rock-and-hawk-watch-and-buttermilk-falls/ ) and [Linden’s Hawk Rise Sanctuary](https://islandinthenet.com/hawk-rise-sanctuary/ ), I was feeling a bit jaded. Rather than chase elusive birds yet again, I figured a relaxed morning closer to home might be just what I needed—a little reset. So, on a mild Saturday morning, I headed to the Sourland Mountain Preserve, just a few minutes away, with a different goal this time: to capture the [yellow wildflowers](https://islandinthenet.com/week-36-intensive-yellow/ ) I that normally bloom along the pipeline trail.

After dropping Shaan off at the Montgomery Farmers Market, I went straight to the Preserve, hoping for a quiet stroll and some easy, colourful shots. The parking lot, which used to be a muddy patch of grass, had been cleared out and resurfaced with gravel a few years back—a welcome improvement for hikers who no longer have to worry about getting stuck after a heavy rain. I managed to find a spot near the pond, although the lot was already half-full with other early risers soaking up the gentle October warmth.

[](https://islandinthenet.com/sourland-mountain-preserve-17/ )Sourland Mountain Preserve · 5 October 2024 · FujiFilm X-T3 · XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WRI had my Fuji X-T3 and, out of habit, packed a few lenses and a tripod. I didn’t expect to need all that, but I’m sure any fellow photographers will understand—it’s hard not to overpack. In the end, I just grabbed the XF16-55mm lens, slung the camera bag around my shoulders, and set off across the grass toward the northern end of the pond. The morning air had that early autumn crispness to it—cool enough to feel refreshing but not yet carrying the bite of winter. I stopped, set up the tripod, and took a quick shot of the pond.

As I wandered along, I started to hear the distant calls of birds. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of movement—a bird darting low over the pond’s surface, only to vanish into one of the tall trees that lined the water. Curious, I moved a bit closer to the pond’s edge, hoping for a clearer view. That’s when I spotted it—a Green Heron, calmly patrolling the shore, totally intent on the water in front of it. The wildflowers I’d come for slipped from my mind.

[](https://islandinthenet.com/green-heron-butorides-virescens-2/ )Green Heron (Butorides virescens) · 5 October 2024 · FujiFilm X-T3 · XF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WRI couldn’t believe my luck. I’d never been this close to a heron before. I jogged back to the car for my XF150-600mm lens, hoping it wouldn’t spook—and luck was on my side. Watching it fish was unexpectedly calming. For the next thirty minutes, I stood still, watching as the heron patiently stalked the water, its beak darting down to pull up a wriggling prize each time. There was something soothing about the bird’s movements—a steady rhythm of patience and precision that contrasted with my own quiet excitement. This wasn’t the thrill of spotting a hawk in flight, but it had its own charm.

[](https://islandinthenet.com/green-heron-butorides-virescens-3/ )Green Heron (Butorides virescens) · 5 October 2024 · FujiFilm X-T3 · XF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WRBy the time the morning was warming up, I’d shifted my attention to the other bird I noticed on the far side of the pond, walking along the grass near the large trees. I hadn’t taken a single shot of wildflowers, but I didn’t mind. This little encounter had been a reminder of how nature can surprise you when you’re least expecting it.

Nostr notes by Khürt Williams

The old pharaohs built monuments of stone. The new ones build ...

After my recent disappointing attempts at spotting raptors at ...