Arcane Teaches Us That Artificial Intelligence Needs Humanity

Jayce Talis, the scientist behind Hextech, working with the arcane crystal. (Riot Games, Arcane).

This November is a big one for computer scientists and engineers. It marks the 37th birthday of Wojciech Zaremba, the computer scientist who founded OpenAI, and the third anniversary of the release of ChatGPT, one of the first accessible language learning models available to the public. And when their compilers switch off and the television switches on for a Netflix binge, they will also celebrate a new milestone: the first anniversary of Arcane’s finale.

The television show Arcane has resonated with scientists from all fields, not just for its stunning animation and rich storytelling, but for the way it grapples with themes of innovation, ethics, and the unintended consequences of technological advancement.

For those in the computing world, these themes hit especially close to home. Artificial intelligence is rapidly growing, both in computing performance and in widespread personal, educational, and corporate use. But like every scientific development in human history, progress is a double-edged sword. AI-powered tools can create revolutionary communication aids for those with speech disabilities. AI can fuel political violence through disinformation campaigns and deepfakes. AI is twice as effective in determining cancer aggressiveness compared to biopsies in lifesaving healthcare situations. AI tools in medicine are at-risk for data misuse and sensitive privacy leaks that can be used to implicate patients.

The idea behind AI had captivated scientists decades before it ever became a reality. This new technology enables us to tap into the near-infinite knowledge bank of scholars, thought leaders, and artists across millennia, fusing them into a new patchwork of borrowed brilliance. As Sir Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

The story of Arcane is much the same way. It’s the thrill of innovation. It’s magic. And it starts with Jayce, a brilliant young inventor who had long been fascinated by harnessing the power of mysterious arcane crystals through science. Although Piltover’s ruling council initially threatens him with exile for his unorthodox experiments, Jayce and his partner, Victor, nevertheless develop Hextech—a powerful technology that channels raw magic through feats of engineering to forever revolutionize their world.

Arcane is a story of scientific ambition and technological innovation. Piltover, a city celebrated for its progress and prosperity, and Zaun, its oppressed sister undercity. It is also a story of the people it affects: Jayce Talis, the celebrated creator of Hextech, is made councilman of Piltover for his contributions. Victor, the terminally ill co-creator from the polluted undercity, desperately searches for a way to use Hextech to cure his deteriorating health. Two partners, united by invention and mutual admiration, yet torn apart by the unequal worlds they inhabit.

In many ways, America, too, remains deeply divided with its lines drawn by wealth, race, and opportunity. Then, came artificial intelligence – what some now call the “great equalizer.” Could in an instant, as Jayce and Victor had envisioned for their people, technology be able to eliminate humankind’s most destructive tendencies that have perpetuated cycles of inequality throughout generations?

The truth is, scientific progress has never been non-political. Warlord Ambessa Medarda warned Jayce, “Weapons can't be unmade, and they are always used.” While Piltover underwent a golden era of Hextech, Zaun was left in its shadows. Piltover’s council consolidated power, capital, and Hextech-based infrastructure, leaving its undercity to contend with the consequences of industrial progress without its benefits. Zaun’s neighborhoods fell under the control of gang violence and insurgents, and its residents were driven to desperate measures. And so, Jayce Talis, the very creator of Hextech who aspired to forge a better world, who navigated political ambitions to remain close to the technology he had pioneered, had become the oppressor of Zaun—manufacturing weapons that left Zaunites either dead or deathly afraid. The Hextech era pressed forward, but at a heavy cost to the Zaunites, as Piltover’s council inadvertently released The Gray, a toxic gas byproduct of Hextech, into Zaun’s streets. Yes, Hextech had become a weapon, a wieldy part of the machinery of oppression.

Life imitates art. The artificial intelligent technology we have today is entirely man-made, but like Hextech, based on arcanic mathematical properties that we don’t fully understand. It can bypass safety mechanisms through AI hallucinations that can spiral anywhere from harmless nonsense into the dangerous, hateful, and disturbingly vulgar. Although we cannot always predict its outputs, we know that AI is trained on historical data, which often causes systems to reproduce societal biases unintentionally.

For that reason, the development of artificial intelligence is political and its consequences are demonstrable. AI hiring tools at Amazon, that were originally created to select employees based on merit, have been shut down after recognizing it systematically excludes women and upholds male-dominated hiring patterns. Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes like China use AI-powered facial recognition to track citizens’ movements, suppress protests, and silence activism, while American law enforcement agencies have broad access to geolocation data from smartphones and wearable devices, raising concerns about surveillance and privacy. Predictive policing algorithms often disproportionately target African Americans by replicating biases found in historical crime data. Medical AI systems have shown unequal treatment of Black psychiatric patients, offering different treatment when Black identity is stated or implied.

Hextech was introduced as a force for progress and protection. So was artificial intelligence. But ultimately, it is the intentions and decisions of those who build and govern these tools that determine who benefits from them, and who is left behind or harmed.

Science has always been political. Innovation is shaped by those with the power to name and define it. There’s a reason we simply anonymize the mathematicians behind the “Quadratic Formula,” rather than naming it after Brahmagupta or Al-Khwarizmi who developed it in the ancient Global South. It’s why Hedy Lamarr, a pioneer of Wi-Fi, goes unrecognized but John von Neumann is celebrated for his namesake model. Or why we rarely hear about Radia Perlman, creator of the STP protocol that enabled the Internet, but are often taught about Edsger Dijkstra and his algorithm. The choice of whose names we remember and whose we erase reveals a deeply unequal legacy in science and technology.

In one scene, Victor laments with his lab partner, looking out at the setting horizon. “In an attempt to be great,” he quietly reflects, “we failed to do good.” As we stand at the crossroads of AI’s rapid expansion, the lessons from Arcane serve as a powerful reminder that progress is not measured solely by technological prowess, but by the well-being and dignity of all communities touched by these advancements. Will the new era of AI build bridges or barriers?

Jayce and Victor, co-creators of Hextech, reflect on their legacy. (Riot Games, Arcane).

The answer depends on who holds the power to shape these technologies and whose voices are included in the conversation. Just as Piltover’s shining achievements cast long shadows over Zaun’s struggles, the glow of AI’s potential risks blinding us to the inequities it may strengthen unless we act deliberately.

This November, as we mark milestones in AI history and celebrate stories like Arcane, we must remember that innovation is rooted in responsibility. Ambessa Medarda was right. We can’t unmake artificial intelligence. But we can find the courage to confront hard truths, to question who benefits and who is left behind, and to commit to creating technologies that uplift rather than oppress.