CONCEPT
The Jargon of Amplification
The AI discourse's use of morally-weighted language—democratization, empowerment, amplification—that invokes liberation while describing processes whose benefits and costs remain undetermined.
The jargon of amplification performs the same ideological function Adorno identified in postwar German existentialism's jargon of authenticity: it provides the sensation of moral seriousness without requiring moral work. Words like "democratizing," "empowering," and "amplifying human potential" carry genuine semantic weight—they name real phenomena. People have been empowered by AI tools. Capabilities have been distributed. But the words function as jargon when they inflate partial truths into total descriptions, name gains while rendering costs inaudible, and provide moral satisfaction ("we are democratizing!") without demanding the uncomfortable questions: democratizing what, for whom, at whose expense, under what conditions, and who captures the surplus the democratization generates? The jargon colonizes the moral high ground, making critical examination feel like an attack on morality itself. To question "democratization" seems to oppose democracy. To question "empowerment" seems to oppose power for the powerless. The vocabulary performs a prophylactic function—it seals the surface of the discourse against the friction that genuine moral inquiry would require.
