The Babylon Tower of Artificial Intelligence
October 03, 2025 · YD (Yehor Dolynskyi)
On the new Tower of Babel we are building with AI — and its costs.
Preface
This text is built on the metaphor of the Tower of Babel. For those unfamiliar: in ancient times, people tried to build a tower to the heavens — a symbol of strength and unity. But God disrupted their plan, confusing their languages, and they could no longer understand one another. The tower was left unfinished.
In the legend, all people spoke the same language before they began building the tower. In our time, we’ve created technologies — such as Ray-Ban smart glasses, Apple AirPods, and others — that bring real-time translation and allow us to communicate across any language without barriers.
Today, we are building a new Tower of Babel — not of stone, but of algorithms, data, and technology. A tower that promises to let people understand each other and speak the same language. I believe it can change the world for the better. But at what cost? And what awaits us this time?
The modern tower: Meta vs. Musk — who will be first?
- Musk acquired Twitter, remade it into X, and through sweeping changes turned it into one of the most influential platforms for ideas, discourse, and data.
- Meta, under Zuckerberg, is building an ecosystem: social networks, smart glasses (Ray-Ban Display + Neural Band), AI models, and hardware.
Both are shaping the future through social networks and AI. They are essentially doing the same thing, but with very different approaches.
This is not merely a contest of technologies — it’s a struggle to be the architect of the next digital civilization.
Meta: quiet but massive integration
Meta has been weaving AI into daily life step by step:
- Meta AI has already surpassed 1 billion monthly users.
- Its apps — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger — together reach over 3 billion people daily.
- Meta spends tens of billions each year on AI research, chips, and infrastructure.
In short: Meta is positioning itself as the invisible layer of intelligence across its entire ecosystem.
Musk: direct approach
Musk’s strategy is bolder:
- X is becoming a global conversation hub with AI at its core.
- Grok is embedded into the platform to analyze, generate, and interact.
- Neuralink aims for the ultimate leap — a direct brain–machine interface, merging human thought with AI.
If Meta “dresses” us in devices, Musk wants to embed the device inside us.
Other builders of the tower
The tower is not built by two men alone.
- Nvidia provides the chips and computing power — the silent engine behind every model.
- Microsoft, Amazon, Google/DeepMind supply the cloud, infrastructure, and research — the scaffolding without which nothing stands.
- Apple and Samsung push their own vision with devices that integrate AI into everyday life, from spatial computing headsets to earbuds that translate speech in real time.
- TSMC, the world’s leading chip manufacturer, is the unseen foundation — producing the processors that make the entire structure possible.
The truth is: the tower is a collective project. Like in the ancient story, it can only rise when many contribute together, each adding their own piece.
But what are we really building: a tower or a cage?
This race is not only about innovation — it is about control.
Yes, AI now translates speech in real time, overlays AR into glasses, and assists in daily routines. But it also locks us into corporate ecosystems, where algorithms decide what we see and know.
And while everyone is shouting about building a tower toward a brighter future — you start to wonder: do the blueprints even align? And why do they look so suspiciously like a cage?
And here comes the essential question: Where is real decentralization, blockchain, and the technologies meant to protect privacy and individual freedom? When corporations harvest every post, message, and photo to train their models — what remains of the Web3 promise?
Conclusion: touch reality
The tower is rising. But you can still step outside. Breathe the air. Hear the wind. Touch the grass. Remember: the screen is not the whole world. The tower may be built, but it doesn’t have to consume us.
— YD