Why AI Cannot Be Trusted
Our understanding of trust should not be grounded in Silicon Valley marketing.
Posted December 23, 2025 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Proponents of artificial intelligence (AI), and especially individuals with a personal incentive to promote investments in the field, often talk about creating and selling AI products that clients can trust. In so doing, however, they reveal a deep misunderstanding of the nature of trust and what it takes to become trustworthy. To gain truly profound insight into trust, we should look not to Silicon Valley’s marketing but to cultural resources that have stood the test of time. One such resource is Homer’s Odyssey .
The Odyssey tells the tale of the profound longing for home of its hero Odysseus, who spent 10 years laying siege to Troy and has sacrificed another decade trying to get back to Ithaca. As one of my teachers pointed out decades ago, The Odyssey is also about the homecoming of his wife, Penelope, who never left the place, yet has also become a stranger to it. Despite never leaving, her home has suffered so many degradations that it, too, requires restoration.
On his sea voyage home, Odysseus is confronted by numerous terrors, including monsters of the deep, a man-eating giant, a land of forgetfulness, and a hostile god, Poseidon. Yet, seemingly against all odds, he eventually finds his way back to Ithaca, where his dog, his father, his wife, his son whom he last saw as an infant, and a few loyal servants have been hoping against hope for his return, even after so many years. There is nothing he has longed for more.
Yet home is not as he left it. His son, Telemachus, has grown up without a father, deprived of someone to show him what it means to be a man. His wife has spent the last few years besieged by suitors, who press upon her to admit that her husband must be dead and choose one of them to inherit his wealth, his kingship, and his wife. These young men, more than 100 in number, no longer listen to the elders, fail to respect the gods, and presage lawlessness and ruin for Ithaca and its inhabitants.
Yet Penelope, no less wily than her husband, has devised a ruse by which to keep them at bay. Each day, she sits at her loom, weaving a burial shroud for her aged father-in-law. At night, she undoes each day’s work, pleading that such an intricate piece requires long effort. Their patience worn thin, the suitors are now demanding that she name a favorite and permit a new king to ascend the throne. Of course, this presumes that Telemachus will be out of the way, something they intend to ensure by plotting his murder.
At last, against all odds, Odysseus returns home, finds his way back to the palace, and enlists the aid of his son and a few loyalists, dispatching the suitors. Then he goes to his wife, expecting to be welcomed and embraced by her. When she instead eyes him warily, he becomes enraged, saying, “Strange woman, to you beyond all women have the dwellers on Olympus given a heart that cannot be softened…. How can you stand aloof from a husband who after many glorious toils has returned home in the 20th year?”
Yet Penelope has her reasons. For one, how does she know this is truly Odysseus, the same man who set sail 20 years ago? What has he experienced during all that time, and how might he have changed? How could they simply pick up where they left off? No, Penelope must know the man anew, know what now reigns foremost in his heart. She must devise a test by which to know not merely whether the fingerprints match but to know what home and family mean to him now.
She does so through subterfuge. She tells her maid to move her bed from the bedchamber into the hallway and get it ready for the stranger’s sleep. At this suggestion, Odysseus explodes in anger . Why? Because he long ago fashioned their bed out of a living olive tree, still anchored in the ground by strong roots. Has some man cut it free? Now he tests her: “I know not, woman, whether my bedstead is still fast in its place, or whether by now some man has cut from beneath the olive stump and set the bedstead elsewhere.”
At last, she knows she can trust him. First, only he could know that the bed is immobile. Second, his rage indicates that the bed still means to him what it always did, and that its steadfastness would vouch for the fidelity of his wife. Finally, she glimpses not just his intellect but his heart, his jealous rage confirming his love for her. She embraces him, saying, “Do not be vexed with me, Odysseus,” wetting her husband’s neck with her tears.
This is trust. Although we might gain confidence in a machine, we cannot trust it. A machine has no character and lacks the human capacity for relationship. It might ape the reactions of a real person, even deceiving some to the point they would conclude that it cannot be an imposter, but a machine cannot care whether its words are taken to heart or not. It is incapable of lying and can only say what is not true.
Suppose the man who returned to Penelope was not her beloved husband but a robot whose every word and action seemed to be authentic. Or suppose Odysseus had returned home to find not his beloved Penelope but a Stepford wife, whose words and actions perfectly mirrored hers. Either might be deceived, at least for a time, but neither would be able truly to trust in the other, for there would be nothing there capable of earning trust.
It is no accident that Odysseus and Penelope spend their first night together sharing what they endured during their long time apart. Only by sharing their stories can they be truly reunited. To again become one flesh, they must first weave together the narratives of their lives, knowing each other not only as generic woman or man but as unique persons. Machines do not lead lives and have no lives to share. As such, they cannot be trusted.
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Richard Gunderman, MD, Ph.D. , is Chancellor's Professor of Radiology, Pediatrics, Medical Education, Philosophy, Liberal Arts, Philanthropy, and Medical Humanities and Health Studies at Indiana University.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.