AI Against Method: An Anarchist Essay

This essay reads contemporary artificial intelligence through Paul Feyerabend’s anarchismin Against Method. It advances seven linked claims. First, AI exposes the fictionof a single scientific method—“anything computes.” Second, epistemic progress dependson pluralism; concentration in a few frontier models and firms is a methodological deadend. Third, so-called hallucinations reprise Galileo’s telescopic contradictions as productivescaffolding. Fourth, AI functions as an engine of counter-induction, generatinguseful heresies and provisional models. Fifth, the danger is not mendacity but thetemptation to enthrone AI as an oracle. Sixth, democratic participation and a guardedseparation of AI and state are needed to prevent technocratic monopoly. Seventh, AIbelongs in a broader carnival of traditions—myth, art, and local knowledge—whereproliferation outruns orthodoxy. The upshot is modest and polemical: reframing error,authority, and participation yields a Feyerabendian case for keeping AI unruly whilebuilding institutions that curb monopoly. Anarchism safeguards creativity in scienceand machine intelligence alike.