Abstract This paper critically explores the ontological underpinning of AI, situating it within the broader quest for certainty that characterizes the Western onto-political imaginary. We argue that AI is a technology of certainty, which is moored in the fragmentation and standardization of language that started with the invention of the Greek alphabet. We question conceptualizations of AI as a “thing” and reconceptualize it as a paradoxical hyperobject (Morton), a world-making apparatus (Barad), and a pharmakon (Plato, Derrida, Stengers). As a hyperpharmakon AI can work as a poison and as a cure with no spatial or temporal limits. Designed to achieve control, it produces the paradoxical effect of generating uncertainty. We challenge the assumption that AI paradoxical effects can be tamed through prescriptive regulatory practices and rely on the conceptual tools of quantum social science to argue for an ethics of practice attentive to resonance and responsibility for navigating the radical ambiguity of AI.
Braun et al. (2026) studied this question.