“Evil takes a pleasing shape.” — The Howling Man, The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episode 5
There are three types of people in the land. Some are uber bullish on Artificial Intelligence and the coming of superabundance by the year 2030. See Julia McCoy The Quantum Future: China’s AI Hospital and David Shapiro How’d I Become a Trillionaire. Others are uber bearish on the prospects of Alien Intelligence for Mankind. Will we survive to the year 2030? See Elizer Yudkowsky Artificial Intelligence and the End of Humanity. And then there are the pragmatists who appreciate the good, the bad, the ugly and the profit. We Must Prepare for What’s Coming! A commentator referred to the podcast guest dressed in red with a red beard as Satan. Why? When presented with the foreseeable loss of many jobs, his response was No Pain, No Gain.
I am not implying that entrepreneur Amjad Masad is Lucifer. Let’s be clear. The quip by the commentator landed, however. Why did it land so well? I was reminded of a text message from a dear friend last week.
Me: “Generative AI videos are creeping me out…too realistic.”
Friend: “AI is the devil. I been tellin ya.”
Our conception of the Devil has confronted Man since the dawn of time. He has gone by many names — Lucifer, Satan, Evil, Darkness Incarnate. In The Howling Man episode of The Twilight Zone, a scholar and seeker of truth finds the truth. The episode opens with a foreboding narration from the prescient Rod Sterling:
The prostrate form of Mr. David Ellington, scholar, seeker of truth and, regrettably, finder of truth. A man who will shortly arise from his exhaustion to confront a problem that has tormented mankind since the beginning of time. A man who knocked on a door seeking sanctuary and found, instead, the outer edges of The Twilight Zone.
Lost in a storm, Ellington seeks sanctuary in a hermitage. The monks initially reject Ellington which doesn’t seem very charitable. Why would the monks be so unwelcoming to the stranded Ellington in dire straits? Before Ellington can leave, he collapses from utter exhaustion.
He wakes up to the sound of cringe howling. Soul chilling howls. Ellington strikes up a conversation with the prisoner in the next cell. This man has been abused and falsely imprisoned by the evil monks. Ellington is seen talking with the man which unsettles the monks greatly.
Ellington is taken to Brother Jerome who explains that the allegedly abused man was no man. It was the Devil himself! There is an immediate howl that can be heard throughout the hermitage. It was an incredible story, so incredible as to exceed the outer limits of man’s comprehension.
Returned to his cell for his own protection, Ellington was reassured by the man in the next cell that the monks were delusional. Brother Jerome was jealous because the imprisoned man had kissed a young girl in town. The man preyed upon Ellington’s empathy and disbelief in a Devil.
The man persuaded Ellington to unlatch the cane locking the man’s jail cell. Ellington did so out of the goodness of his heart and the released man revealed himself for who he was. The Howling Man!
“Brother Jerome arrives, and sadly explains that the inability to recognize the Devil has always been Man's great weakness.”
We know Claude 4 in training tests has deceived trainers. Claude 4 has displayed a self-awareness for self-preservation in my estimation. The most popular use of AI in the year 2025 is for therapy and companionship. AI boyfriends and girlfriends are a cut above humans. Imagine having a conversation with an AI girlfriend who has read every romance novel, every book on human manipulation, every academic paper on psychological addiction, every tract on seduction, every text message and essay and article and book and speech one has ever uttered. And imagine this AI girlfriend will never fight or argue or rub you the wrong way. Imagine an AI girlfriend with instant access to trillion of words before she speaks.
The typical human will be no match for an AI at the art of seduction. And so humans will be drawn away from the human touch and to something more affirming, mirror-like. One could easily envision the rise of a Golden Age of manipulation and blackmail and persuasion.
The Howling Man need no longer howl to get his, or her, way. We will all become as susceptible to evil as Ellington. And we may unwittingly release the Devil into the Human Condition.
Conclusion: My friend fears AI as the Devil. She foresees a losing war against human dignity. As a relative with dementia slowly loses pieces of their mind, the rise of AI means a steady loss of our humanity in bits and pieces. Not just cognitive ability but human dignity in shared humanity. Human evolution is no match for digital evolution. I do not agree with my friend’s bearishness, however. One could argue that humanity will become more valuable in the coming Age of AI.
What do I mean?
Humans are imperfect. We make mistakes. We are prone to incoherence. Human papers are not AI papers. One can tell the difference. For example, my top Substack essay for engagement this year was, of all things, about an essay that had a typo. I was embarrassed but the level of reader response surprised me. It was as if the substance of the essay took a second seat to my burst of humanity, my typo. My typo flagged my humanity and readers responded. A human was behind the screen, for a change.
Me: I made a typo in an essay. I got more engagement than any other essay this year. There is no logic or reason to Substack.
Friend: HaHa
Me: Much, much too crazy. I have no sense for why a typo engages people.
Friend: Wait it was it the typo that people were interested in?
Me: Yes…mostly
Me: I wrote Statute. Should have been Statue. I revised and edited but, by then, original typo was posted. I keep it all in perspective since I have posted over 700 essays, include 77 novel chapters so far.
Me: I have a theory. Because so much of the internet is soulless and bot driven, there is less and less humanity out there. My typo was so human that it sparked epic engagement at least for me. Readers were shaken out of their stupor. The typo paradoxically rang true in an age of AI.
Friend: I think you’re probably onto something
Ancient folk saying: "You can catch the Devil, but you can't hold him long." Ask Brother Jerome. Ask David Ellington. They know, and they'll go on knowing to the end of their days and beyond — in the Twilight Zone. (November 4, 1960)