In a series of San Francisco lectures that sound more like Silicon Valley fever dreams than venture capital strategy, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has declared that government regulation of AI and emerging technologies would literally herald the biblical Antichrist. The tech billionaire's eschatological argument against tech oversight comes as Washington weighs stricter AI safety measures.
The tech world's most unusual regulatory argument just dropped in San Francisco, and it involves the Book of Revelation. Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of Palantir and early Facebook investor, has been delivering a four-part lecture series arguing that government regulation of artificial intelligence would literally usher in the biblical Antichrist.
The timing isn't coincidental. As Congress debates AI safety legislation and the Biden administration pushes for stricter oversight of emerging technologies, Thiel's chosen this moment to frame regulatory discussions in apocalyptic terms. According to The Wall Street Journal's coverage of his talks at the Acts 17 Collective, Thiel warns that existential risks from nuclear war, bioweapons, and autonomous AI will create demand for a "one-world government" promising peace and safety.
"This is sort of where my speculative thesis is, that if the Antichrist were to come to power, it would be by talking about Armageddon all the time," Thiel explained in a Hoover Institution podcast last December, laying groundwork for these lectures. "The slogan of the Antichrist is peace and safety."
The argument follows a peculiar logic: emerging technologies like AI pose existential threats, which will create public demand for regulation, which will enable authoritarian control, which fulfills biblical prophecy about the end times. It's venture capital meets Christian eschatology meets libertarian political theory.
What makes this particularly striking is Thiel's massive financial exposure to the very technologies he's defending. Beyond Palantir's government contracts worth billions, Thiel's Founders Fund has invested heavily in AI startups and defense tech companies. His lecture series essentially argues that regulating his portfolio would bring about the apocalypse.
The lectures, hosted by Acts 17 Collective - a nonprofit run by a Thiel associate targeting "tech founders, producers, designers, and creatives" - represent a fascinating evolution in Silicon Valley's anti-regulation messaging. Instead of traditional economic arguments about innovation and competition, Thiel's deploying theological warfare.
