AI is not a tool; this is a power that only gods should possess, yet it has been given to us mere mortals.

Writing by: Lightning Huang Shiliang

Part 1 | Losing Composure

A friend asked me whether ChatGPT, Codex, Claude Code are really good to use.

I initially wanted to analyze seriously, but what slipped out was a somewhat unrestrained remark:

“It’s so useful, it’s a miracle, this is the power that only gods should have, and it’s given to us mortals.”

Even I was stunned after saying it.

Because this doesn’t sound like praising a product, more like implying that this kind of power shouldn’t be so easily in the hands of ordinary people.

Part 2 | Permissions

As a child, watching Prometheus steal fire, I thought it was just a fairy tale about bravery.

Now, truly facing these large models, I finally understand: fire isn’t really fire; it’s the “system permissions” of the underlying world.

Primitive humans got fire, and what they gained was not just warmth in winter, but the first unlock of superpowers to drive away beasts, cook food, and even smelt metals.

They directly bypassed the long evolutionary ladder of the body, forcibly rewriting the survival rules of nature.

The current AI’s震撼感 is exactly the same.

In the past, humans wanted to reach true “higher-level creation,” relying on time, talent, and organizational scale.

You either spend most of your life struggling in a field, or pile up huge capital to assemble a team, forcibly combining countless top minds to understand a complex system.

This cross-domain “massive computing power” was originally a divine altar built over long years and astronomical capital, a privilege only a few giants and elites could have.

But now, AI makes you cross not the “decades of hard study,” but the very boundaries of brainpower itself.

An ordinary person sitting in a bedroom, tapping a few keys, can instantly mobilize the knowledge of hundreds of millions of top minds in human civilization.

But this astonishing leap creates a highly deceptive illusion: you’re not really growing a godlike three heads and six arms; you just pay $20 a month to register as a ChatGPT Plus member.

You’ve only spent dozens of dollars, holding a rein tied to an unknown beast.

Part 3 | Riding the Elephant

The most terrifying thing is that they are no longer tools; AI is no longer just “answering questions” or giving us results, so simply.

They are truly starting to “take over” tasks.

Give a few instructions, and they go off to scrape code, fix bugs, search the entire internet, and compile a long report.

In the past, tools were maps; you had to walk the path yourself.

Now? You just set a destination, and the car moves by itself.

You think you’re still driving. Actually, you’re not, even though you’re still in the driver’s seat.

What’s the difference? When you drive yourself, you might stop to take a scenic photo or buy a bottle of water on the side. But when the car drives itself, you probably won’t.

This illusory sense of control has turned us into “elephant riders.”

You sit high on the elephant’s back, waving commands, thinking you’re directing it precisely, confident of victory.

But in reality, it’s the elephant wading through water, and the elephant clearing the way.

We pride ourselves on being the masters, but forget that we’re just fortunate to have mounted a mighty beast.

This isn’t about me becoming stronger; it’s about awakening a force far beyond myself, a colossal creature I probably can’t control.

Part 4 | Thunderbolt

Since it’s stealing fire, Zeus’s thunder will eventually strike.

I only vaguely thought this before.

Until Anthropic released Mythos, calling it a watershed in the safety field.

For the first time, I felt this might not just be a metaphor. Because from that moment, people’s discussions weren’t just about efficiency, but whether this thing would break down the barriers to finding vulnerabilities and hacking systems.

Then, the KelpDAO cross-chain bridge in the crypto world had issues, with attackers creating a bunch of “air collateral,” depositing it into Aave, and borrowing over two billion dollars worth of ETH.

I don’t know if this is related to Mythos.

But the timing is chilling: does this mean the thresholds for sabotage and vulnerability discovery have been completely shattered?

Will such incidents become more frequent in the future?

Part 5 | Embers

When fire falls to the human world, the first thing is often not warmth.

But burning.

History books love to gloss over the truth, only writing about the prosperity of the new world, not the screams when the old order collapses.

The mass extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago wasn’t about evolution; it was a ruthless upheaval of the entire world.

Today, when we talk about the Industrial Revolution, we speak of steam engines, large factories, and leaps in productivity, but for those living through it, the first feelings weren’t prosperity but being driven off land, replaced by machines, and ruthlessly “repriced.”

The new era never comes on flowers; it always comes on ruins.

So, the night before the AI revolution is definitely not a spring bloom.

Even the IMF has coldly released data: over 40% of jobs worldwide will be affected by AI.

This signals a silent cleansing.

What’s most frightening isn’t just losing your job instantly, but being completely “erased”—waking up to find that the professional barriers you’ve painstakingly built over a lifetime are burned to ash in this great fire.

You did nothing wrong; you still work hard every day, but you’re kicked off the table by the times, without even an apology.

It has nothing to do with you being eliminated.

Part 6 | Choosing Sides

Even knowing all this, I still unhesitatingly stand with Prometheus.

Because being burned by fire is indeed terrifying, but the fire itself is always monopolized by a few “gods,” which is a thousand times scarier.

Imagine if this “system permission” that can rewrite the foundation of civilization is forever locked in the data centers of Silicon Valley giants, serving only a tiny few capitalists and elites—would that “silent cleansing” stop?

Of course not. It would only become more arrogant and desperate. We must never allow only the “priests” on high to control the fire.

If fire is only in the hands of priests, ordinary people will still be crushed, replaced, and kicked off the table, even unaware of what kind of dimensionality reduction attack hit them. Without even a last weapon to leverage for self-rescue, we can only be slaughtered unilaterally in the technological chasm.

Now, Prometheus has recklessly thrown this fire into the crowd.

Zeus will surely be furious. His thunder will strike, and those industries overturned, jobs shattered, and systems out of control—these are punishments from the gods, destined to fall indiscriminately on each of us.

But because of this, you must not stand empty-handed in the storm waiting to die.

So, quickly