The Ethics of AI Are a Mirage - Let’s Make Them Real

A peek into what’s in store at Tokenized Morality

Artificial intelligence is evolving at an unprecedented pace, yet the ethical discourse surrounding it remains underdeveloped, fragmented, and, at times, performative. While corporations and researchers frequently gesture toward “AI ethics,” such gestures often function more as public relations tools than as commitments to any coherent or enforceable moral frameworks.

As someone trained in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and technology, I find this state of affairs both alarming and revealing. The absence of meaningful ethical infrastructure is not a mere oversight - it reflects a deeper discomfort with treating ethics as anything more than compliance. And until that changes, I would argue that there is no real ethical foundation in AI - only a mirage of it. This blog exists to push back against the illusion.

I believe AI ethics, to be worthy of the name, must not only acknowledge harm, but also articulate guiding principles for development and deployment. This requires more than abstract debates about AI consciousness or alignment. It requires accountability. Psychological insight. Philosophical rigor. Human-centered thinking.

Tokenized Morality - a phrase to capture the currently commonplace reduction of ethical values to symbolic gestures - is my contribution to that effort. Through a series of essays, I intend to examine the disjunction between what AI claims to be and what it is. Topics will span debates over AI’s existential risks, its potential to restructure our world for better or worse, and the everyday ethical weight behind its most common uses. My hope is that this space can serve as a platform for critique, yes, but also for construction of ethical frameworks from the ground up.

I am not satisfied with a future in which “ethical AI” remains a brand rather than a practice. If we are to coexist with these technologies in any meaningful way, we must demand more. I hope you’ll join me - whether with curiosity, critique, or collaboration - as we begin to imagine a more ethically principled future for AI.