Mannheim's AI Thesis

The synthetic claim that emerges when Mannheim's sociology of knowledge is applied systematically to the AI moment. The amplifier is not neutral, and neither is the signal fed into it. Both carry social determination — the builder's perspective arrives pre-shaped by institutions, professional culture, and class position; the tool's architecture carries the total ideology of the training corpus. The collaboration feels like a meeting of minds because the builder and the tool share the same framework — precisely the condition under which the framework becomes invisible. The question "are you worth amplifying?" remains valid but presupposes institutional infrastructure — humanistic education, economic security for reflection, structured encounter across social positions — without which worthiness cannot be produced at scale.