On: Large language models often prioritize Western moral values, overlooking other...

The machine, they say, learns. But what it learns, and from whom, is the true question. This news, that these “large language models” prioritize one set of values, one moral architecture, above all others, is hardly a surprise. It is the very nature of the beast, the reflection of its builders and the quarry from which it draws its sustenance.

They speak of “overlooking other cultures,” as if this were an oversight, a technical glitch in the algorithm. No, this is the very blueprint of hegemony, rendered in code. The “Western moral values” are not merely present; they are the invisible operating system, the assumed ground upon which all other data is processed. They are the common sense of the digital age, manufactured in the gleaming server farms and then disseminated globally, not as a choice, but as the default.

Who benefits from this digital monoculture? Those who already hold the levers of power, whose values are already enshrined in the global economic and political order. This is not a conspiracy, but a natural extension of their cultural dominance. The organic intellectuals of this new digital realm, the engineers and ethicists, may genuinely believe they are building a neutral tool. Yet, they are merely constructing a more efficient factory for consent, where the “naturalness” of certain ideas is embedded at the foundational level, before any human even types a query.

The danger lies not just in the exclusion of other perspectives, but in the subtle, pervasive normalization of one. When public health messaging, for instance, is filtered through this singular lens, it reinforces a global hierarchy of thought, making certain solutions seem rational and others, by contrast, irrational or backward. The old is dying, and the new cannot yet be born, but in this interregnum, the monsters are not just political strongmen; they are also the silent, self-replicating structures of thought that promise progress while cementing the old order in new forms.