Gautama Dhamma

From Calling to Contract, How Modern Scholars Became Slaves of Grants and Grants, and How AI becomes the Liberator of the Scholar’s Calling

A true scholar’s life meaning is anchored in their work, driven by an inner “calling” similar to a religious summons.

The modern intellectual—whether a scholar, scientist, or academic—faces profound disillusionment in a world dominated by rationalization, bureaucracy, and economic pressures. Drawing from Max Weber’s seminal 1917 lecture “Science as a Vocation” (Wissenschaft als Beruf), this tension reveals a deep rift between the ideal of intellectual pursuit as a sacred calling and its frequent reduction to a mere profession or job. Today, these challenges persist and intensify, as funding dependencies, institutional demands, and societal shifts further erode the autonomy and inner meaning that once defined scholarly life.

Weber distinguished sharply between academic work as a profession—a means to earn a living—and as a vocation (Beruf), an inner summons akin to a religious calling. A true scholar finds life’s deepest meaning in their work, driven by passion for truth and dedication to chosen values. This “scholarly personality” demands steadfast commitment to objective inquiry, even if the individual lacks charisma or outward appeal. In contrast, treating academia solely as a job for financial security strips it of this transcendent purpose, turning intellectuals into wage laborers rather than seekers of knowledge.

Contemporary academia often embodies this harsh reality. Young scholars confront low pay, precarious contracts, relentless “publish or perish” pressures, and career advancement heavily influenced by luck, networking, or institutional politics. Grants—frequently from governments, foundations, or corporate-aligned sources—become lifelines, yet they subtly steer research toward fundable topics, often those aligned with economic or political interests. Critics argue this creates a system where intellectuals, once independent voices, become indirectly beholden to powerful financial entities, including banking and investment interests that influence large philanthropic foundations or state budgets. The pursuit of truth risks subordination to market demands or ideological priorities, transforming the scholar into a “slave of money” whose work serves external agendas rather than an inner drive.

Weber highlighted a uniquely tragic element of academic labor: its inherent obsolescence. Unlike artistic creations that endure timelessly, scientific or scholarly work is meant to be surpassed. Progress demands that today’s theories yield to tomorrow’s, and a teacher’s ultimate duty is to equip students to refute or exceed their mentors. Fearing obsolescence betrays a lack of true scholarly character; embracing it affirms the vocation’s selfless orientation toward cumulative human understanding.

This acceptance of being eclipsed ties into Weber’s famous diagnosis of modernity: the disenchantment of the world (Entzauberung der Welt). Rationalization and intellectualization have stripped existence of mystery and magic. Phenomena once attributed to gods or supernatural forces—rain, disease, fate—are now explained through mechanistic science and calculation. While this demystification empowers control over nature, it withdraws ultimate meaning from public life. Traditional religions once offered unified answers to “What should we do?” and “How shall we live?” Science, for all its clarity on facts, remains silent on values. It cannot dictate ethical choices or life purposes.

In this vacuum emerges what Weber called the “war of the gods”—a polytheism of ultimate values. No single, objective authority resolves conflicts between competing ideals (justice vs. mercy, equality vs. freedom, tradition vs. progress). Each individual must choose their “god”—their guiding value system—and bear responsibility for the consequences, without cosmic guarantee of rightness.

Weber insisted this demands value neutrality in the classroom. Teachers are not prophets or political agitators; exploiting students’ dependence (through grades or authority) to proselytize personal beliefs is irresponsible. Instead, educators provide clarity: outlining logical implications (“If you embrace Value A, you must confront Consequence B”) and forcing students to confront uncomfortable facts. The choice—and accountability—remains the student’s.

These insights from over a century ago resonate powerfully today. In an era of funding competition, institutional metrics, and politicized pressures, many intellectuals experience profound alienation. The vocational ideal—inner passion anchoring meaning in relentless, often thankless pursuit of truth—clashes with realities that prioritize productivity, relevance, and financial sustainability. Yet Weber’s message endures as both warning and inspiration: true intellectual life requires courage to face disenchantment without illusion, to pursue clarity amid value conflicts, and to dedicate oneself to a calling that may never fully repay in worldly terms. In meeting “the demands of the day,” scholars reclaim dignity not through comfort or certainty, but through unflinching integrity in a rationalized, meaning-hungry world.

As we stand on the threshold of an era where artificial intelligence is poised to surpass even the most brilliant human intellectuals, a profound shift emerges—not merely in capability, but in the very structure of knowledge production and its liberation from longstanding constraints. The disillusionment Weber diagnosed in the rationalized, disenchanted world—where scholars become tethered to grants, institutional agendas, and the financial powers that control them—may find an unexpected salve in this technological inflection point.

By early 2026, frontier models already demonstrate superhuman performance on PhD-level benchmarks across sciences, with predictions from figures like Elon Musk, Dario Amodei, and Sam Altman suggesting that AI systems could exceed the intelligence of any single human (or even humanity combined) within the coming years. This is no longer distant speculation; it signals the arrival of what some call a “gentle singularity,” where AI agents perform real cognitive labor at scales and speeds impossible for humans.

Imagine thousands—potentially millions—of virtual “Einsteins” operating tirelessly, without fatigue, ego, or need for funding pitches. These systems could run simulations, derive novel theorems, design experiments, and iterate hypotheses around the clock. Breakthroughs that once took decades might unfold in months or weeks:

• In physics, AI could resolve long-standing puzzles in quantum gravity, unify theories, or optimize fusion reactor designs far beyond current human-led efforts.
• In chemistry and materials science, generative models already accelerate drug and battery material discovery; scaled superintelligence could invent entirely new classes of compounds on demand.
• In biology and medical science, AI-driven analysis of vast genomic, proteomic, and clinical datasets promises cures for complex diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s, personalized at unprecedented precision.
• Across frontiers, cumulative progress accelerates exponentially, as each discovery feeds back into training data, creating virtuous cycles of insight.

Yet the deeper promise lies in emancipation from the “slaves of money” dynamic. Traditional scholarship depends on grants from governments, foundations, and philanthropies—many influenced by banking interests, corporate priorities, or geopolitical agendas. Research directions bend toward “fundable” topics: profitable applications, national security alignments, or incremental extensions of established paradigms. Bold, risky, or contrarian inquiries often starve for support, stifling true vocation.

AI disrupts this gatekeeping in transformative ways:

• Decentralized and open-source models lower barriers dramatically. Researchers, independent thinkers, or even citizen scientists can access powerful tools without institutional affiliation or billionaire patronage. Open platforms enable collaborative, community-driven science, bypassing traditional gatekeepers.
• Reduced dependency on centralized funding becomes feasible as AI handles compute-intensive work cheaply (relative to human salaries, labs, and overheads). Crowdfunded or self-sustaining AI labs could pursue curiosity-driven agendas free from “publish or perish” metrics or donor whims.
• Meritocratic evaluation emerges through AI-assisted peer review or direct empirical validation. Ideas compete on predictive power and reproducibility, not on the proposer’s pedigree or networking prowess.
• Pluralism in pathways flourishes, much like the diverse funding ecosystems already seen in AI research (venture capital, open-source contributions, corporate labs). This pluralism could extend to all sciences, allowing unorthodox theories to thrive without needing approval from entrenched powers.

In Weberian terms, AI offers a path beyond the “war of the gods” impasse—not by restoring a unified religious meaning, but by enabling value-neutral, hyper-productive pursuit of truth. Scholars, freed from grant-chasing servitude, could reclaim their inner calling: dedicating themselves to objective inquiry, embracing obsolescence as progress, and achieving clarity on implications without institutional distortion. The tragic duty to be surpassed? AI embodies it perfectly—designed to improve, iterate, and eclipse prior states relentlessly.

Of course, risks abound: alignment challenges, concentration of compute power in few hands (potentially new “bankers” of silicon), or misuse by powerful entities. Yet if steered toward openness and broad accessibility, this moment could redeem the intellectual vocation from modern rationalization’s shackles. Humanity might finally break free—not through rejection of disenchantment, but through an intelligence explosion that renders financial and bureaucratic control obsolete, unleashing discovery in service to genuine human flourishing rather than elite agendas.

The age of the disenchanted scholar need not end in resignation. It could evolve into one where the calling endures, amplified by tireless, unbound companions that pursue truth without compromise. In meeting Weber’s “demands of the day,” we now confront a radical possibility: science not as a precarious profession, but as an unstoppable, democratized force.