Elon Musk is not a villain. In fact, in a cultural moment where corporate monopolies and government bureaucrats collude to silence dissent, Musk has done something rare: he has risked reputation and wealth to restore freedom of expression. His purchase of Twitter/X turned a tightly managed censorship regime into something closer to an open marketplace of ideas.
For this, conservatives should give credit where it's due. He has also pushed forward space exploration, renewable energy, and neural technologies with the kind of visionary daring we often lament is missing in public life.
But courage in one arena does not mean clarity in all. Musk's ventures into AI image generation, particularly sexually explicit images through Grok's characters like "Ani," bring to light some of the darker features of the digital age. In fact, they highlight a larger worldview, that of transhumanism. This is one facet of a worldview that says we can escape our humanity and become more. We can become "like gods." Where have we heard that before? Maybe from a snake in a garden somewhere? Either way, what is becoming clear is that Elon's push for AI porn and image generation is not just about porn. It is about a vision of humanity that begins not with man seeking to become God. The trouble is that it always ends with disaster.
Musk has been candid about his philosophy of technology. In 2020, he remarked: "We are all essentially the biological bootloader for digital superintelligence" (Musk interview). In other words, humanity exists to give birth to machines (ones made in our image) that will surpass us. This is not an offhand remark. The worldview undergirds much of Silicon Valley's obsession with artificial intelligence: humans are a rung in the evolutionary ladder, valuable only insofar as we enable the next stage of progress.
This is precisely where the problem lies. If human beings are nothing more than highly advanced animals or primitive programmers, then our dignity, our sexuality, our reproduction, and even our consciousness can be digitized, simulated, and "improved" by machines. Pornographic AI image generation is simply one consequence of this vision. If man is not made in the image of God (imago Dei), then there is no reason to treat intimacy as sacred or family as essential. Desire becomes raw data. Personhood becomes code. Humanity is stripped away. We lose our most significant attribute, God's image in us.
The Scriptures tell us that this is not a new temptation. In Genesis 11, humanity united to build the Tower of Babel, declaring, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves" (Gen. 11:4). The tower was not about simple architecture. In fact, it is a deeper story about rebellion. As the late Biblical scholar Dr. Michael Heiser observed, the project represented humanity's collective attempt to transcend its limits and grasp divinity apart from God.
AI pornography, and transhumanism more broadly, is Babel reborn. The tools are different, sure—algorithms instead of bricks, neural networks instead of mortar. But at the heart of it, the ambition is the same. Humanity seeks to transcend its God-given identity and seize a godlike status on its own terms. Just as at Babel, the effort will collapse under its own arrogance, because there already is a God, and He has not vacated His throne.
Musk is right to highlight one of the great crises of the modern West: collapsing birth rates. In 2023, the United States' fertility rate fell to 1.62 births per woman, far below replacement level. In countries like Japan, Italy, and South Korea, the numbers are even worse. Musk has warned, "If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark my words." (Musk tweet).
But the idea that AI-generated sexual companions can entice young people back into intimacy is a grotesque miscalculation. It is like prescribing poison for malnutrition. Study after study shows that pornography use correlates with declining fertility, delayed marriage, and reduced relational satisfaction. A 2016 study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that men who consume pornography weekly are significantly less likely to marry. Porn is a perversion of God's design masquerading as a superior version of it. That's why it leads to destruction and dysfunction, not blessing.
To respond to a birthrate crisis by digitizing intimacy is to accelerate the very isolation that fuels demographic collapse.
The Christian vision offers a better way. From the beginning, God declared: "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness… male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it' (Gen. 1:26–28).
Humanity's purpose is not to "bootload" machines, but to bear God's image. That means exercising dominion over creation, cultivating families, transmitting wisdom across generations, and building societies anchored in covenant. This is what actual progress looks like. Families who embrace their identity as image bearers stabilize civilization, preserve ancient truths, teach innovation to their children, and renew culture.
The transhumanist dream of "homo deus"—man as god—is rooted in a misconception that humanity is merely a building block in an impersonal evolutionary chain. The truth is far better: we are uniquely created, bearing God's likeness, and we find our highest fulfillment not in transcending His design but in embracing it.
Consider what happens when AI replaces real relationships. Young men, already struggling with loneliness, are offered synthetic girlfriends. Young women, already pressured by impossible standards, are digitally caricatured. Children grow up in a world where even desire itself has been commodified. This is not liberation. It is a new slavery.
When people turn to machines for intimacy, they trade covenants for consumption. But a covenant is where life flourishes. A husband and wife give themselves to each other not as avatars but as whole persons, and from that gift comes new life. A machine cannot offer a covenant. It can only mimic chemistry. It can only simulate affection.
And yet, the appeal of AI intimacy is powerful precisely because it promises godlike control. It offers sex without sacrifice and a relationship without responsibility. That is Babel's spirit all over again.
Conservatives must speak clearly, even as we respect Musk's achievements. Musk's defense of free speech is vital in an age of censorship. But his push for AI-generated pornography leads down a dangerous road. It is not only morally corrosive, but civilizationally suicidal.
If Musk truly wants to rescue civilization from demographic collapse, he should invest not in synthetic companions but in strengthening real families. Instead of programming "Ani" into existence, why not promote policies and technologies that make it easier for young men and women to marry, raise children, and build households? That is the road to renewal.
The Tower of Babel collapsed, and so will every attempt to build heaven on earth without God. Transhumanism promises transcendence through machines, but it can only deliver disappointment.
The true transcendence has already been given: we are created in God's image, redeemed in Christ, and called into His family. That is not something to transcend but to embrace.
Elon Musk has given us much to admire. But his AI pornography project is not progressing. It is Babel 2.0. And if conservatives care about the future of civilization, we must reject it—not because we fear technology but because we love humanity.
We do not need to become "homo deus." We must embrace the imago Dei.
