A World Without Workers? Silicon Valley’s AI Religion is Machine Worship: Elon Musk, the All-In Podcast, and their Academic Fans

This paper examines how Silicon Valley techno-libertarianism is an AI religion that sacralizes technological innovation while marginalizing labor. Discourse about the benefits of AI and disruptive technologies, analyzed across 350 episodes of the All-In Podcast, along with writings from Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen, was used to form a survey given to faculty and students at a Northern California university. Survey respondents were asked whether God, money, or techne (machines) function as primary sources of meaning and social progress. The analysis shows that techno-libertarian narratives portray artificial intelligence and technological disruption as socially salvific while obscuring class relations, including labor displacement. Interpreted through Max Weber’s notion of disenchantment, this worldview operates as a secular moral framework that legitimizes wealth accumulation while rendering workers largely invisible within narratives of technological progress.