The Trust Mirage: Why Safety Theater Is More Dangerous Than No Safety At All

How Tech Giants Weaponize Governance Performance to Avoid Actual Accountability

There is no industry more fluent in the aesthetics of responsibility than the one automating consequential decisions about human lives. Tech giants have perfected a particular form of corporate theater: the simulation of trustworthiness so convincing that most people forget to demand proof. They build beautiful “Responsible AI” pages. They publish model cards with impressive taxonomies. They convene ethics boards that disband when inconvenient. They give keynotes about the importance of safety, delivered by executives who will never face consequences when their systems fail.

This is Safety Theater, governance as performance art, designed to look like accountability from a distance while functioning as a liability shield up close.

And it works because of something deeper and more troubling: most people no longer remember what real trust feels like. When every app surveils you, every platform manipulates you, e…