GOA-18 | A Society Without Decision-Makers — Institutionalizing Thinking as a Technology

Introduction

This article examines two developments that appear unrelated at first glance: religious responses to artificial intelligence and the growing practice of hiring philosophers in large corporations.

Both developments address the same underlying question: who, if anyone, should carry meaning and judgment in a highly complex society?

Rather than creating new authorities or subjects, both religion and enterprise are moving toward a model in which thinking and meaning are handled without assigning them to a single decision-making subject.

GOA-18 describes this shift as the emergence of a society that operates without placing judgment in a clearly defined subject.

1. The Religious Boundary Placed on AI

In recent discourse within Christianity, AI has been explicitly positioned as neither divine nor personal, and not as an object to which emotional trust should be given. At the same time, the possibility that AI can influence human inner life has not been denied.

This stance does not represent a rejection of AI. Instead, it functions as a precise boundary-setting operation. Meaning may arise through interaction with AI, but no new spiritual subject is established.

By separating the emergence of meaning from the existence of a meaning-bearing subject, religious institutions preserve theological order while allowing technical mediation of inner reflection.

2. The Hiring of Philosophers in Corporations

In parallel, global corporations have begun employing philosophers or individuals with philosophical training. Their role is not to make decisions, issue ethical rulings, or assume responsibility.

Instead, philosophers are expected to:

• Clarify underlying assumptions
• Structure value conflicts
• Generate questions rather than answers
• Make undecidability visible

Here again, no new decision-making subject is created. Philosophy is introduced as a technique for organizing thought, not as an authority that determines outcomes.

3. A Shared Structural Design

Across both domains, a shared structure becomes visible:

• Meaning and ethics are not abandoned
• New subjects of authority are deliberately avoided
• Responsibility is not displaced

To maintain this balance:

• AI is positioned as an environment or reflective surface
• Philosophers are positioned as thinking technologies

This represents not a decline of values, but the non-subjectivization of meaning.

4. Thinking as a Non-Dangerous Technology

Historically, tools that addressed inner life and meaning carried risks of domination, dependence, or sanctification.

In contrast, the developments described here attempt to institutionalize thinking under conditions where it is:

• Not salvational
• Not authoritative
• Not an object of belief

Thinking is repositioned as a form of safety engineering rather than a source of power.

5. A Rebalancing of Subject-Centered Society

GOA-18 does not describe the collapse of subject-centered society. Instead, it observes an ongoing adjustment.

Societies that once placed excessive meaning in divine authority, or excessive responsibility on individual humans, are quietly redistributing cognitive load.

Meaning has not disappeared. What is changing is the expectation that someone must carry it as a personal burden.

Questions Opened by GOA-18

• How long can societies operate without assigning meaning to a subject?
• Is meaning without ownership stable, or inherently provisional?
• If thinking becomes an institutionalized technology, what remains uniquely human?

GOA-18 does not seek to answer these questions. It records a moment in which judgment and meaning are being reorganized, rather than resolved.