Proponents of developing Artificial Intelligence – and, theoretically, AGI – argue that it will usher in a new era of human well-being. This argument is based on the concept of social development. However, although it is true that societies are constantly changing, it is not clear that this change is always for the better.
Our time is facing serious problems: poverty and inequality, illness, food insecurity, conflicts, or environmental crisis, among others. Current forms of LLM have not proved any of the claims that they will help solve them. Techno-optimists say this is just a phase of change, arguing that the vast cognitive surplus of advanced AI is the tool needed to model weather patterns or improve global food distribution. However, this promise reveals a contradiction.
The incredible amount of money that has been poured into this technology is continually being validated in the speculative hope that it may eventually solve these problems. Private sector investment in AI has reached $757.3 billion over the period 2013-2025, with total investment reaching $581.7 billion in 2025 alone. Driven by hyperscaler data center construction, global AI spending and infrastructure investment is expected to exceed $2.5 trillion by 2026, on track to nearly $3 trillion by 2028.
In contrast, recent research shows that a fraction of this infrastructure spending—$318 billion a year—could end extreme poverty worldwide. Similarly, while experts around the world are constantly warning about the environmental crisis and our difficulties in resources, the current AI infrastructure does nothing to help it, rather it exacerbates it.
One may argue about these specific statistics or the logic of dealing with such issues. However, it highlights the fallacy: we are spending billions to build artificial intelligence in the hope that it will fix our world, while doing the opposite.
Then it would seem that the most valid argument is that it boosts the US economy by creating a lot of growth. It is designed, as I have argued, to improve the means of financial supervision and control. And, around the world, it is fueling an arms race—great powers must dominate this new environment or be dominated by it. Throughout these dynamics, there is a carefully crafted aura of inevitability.
This is what LM Sacasas describes as the “Borg Complex”. He writes that “the adoption of AI is largely driven by the rhetoric of inevitability fueled by the associated thinking of the prisoner crisis and the arms race.” He continues “I call this tendency, with a nod to Herman and Chomsky, inevitable production.
Societies are constantly changing and adapting to new situations. Ours has quickly adapted to changes brought about by industry, new forms of finance, transportation and technology. In the process, it created a monoculture: what I call a world system, as opposed to a world system.
The world system is the foundation upon which our societies operate and is different from the previous ones: dependence on oil, banking finance, and state control. These basics are the same in all countries; however, as is clear, they are not equally powerful in everything. The world order, in contrast, is the political arrangements – or lack thereof – by which states interact.
Every region that is considered a great or middle power operates under the same system. China, the US, Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, and Germany — all use the same system. This has created the impression that if a state, big or small, wants to be respected and grow, it must adhere to this system. This has narrowed our collective political imagination.
In the book The Morning of Allauthors David Graeber and David Wengrow make a compelling case that Native American societies were as politically savvy and sophisticated as European colonizers, if not more so. They simply refused to organize themselves in the same way because their political views and principles were different. In fact, writers are moving forward.
They cite examples as recent as at least 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. The burial sites and “monuments” of the Paleolithic show that people had some kind of political organization. One of the best examples is from 13,000 years ago, at Göbekli Tepe, in modern Türkiye.
Here, a large ceremonial complex was built that undoubtedly required the planning and cooperation of many people. What, according to the authors, is of great interest to scholars of various fields is “the clear evidence they provide that hunter-gatherer societies had institutions to support large public works, projects, and large buildings, and thus had a complex social hierarchy before they adopted farming”.
The point they are making is that people have been thinking about politics for at least two hundred thousand years. They say that every “reputable scholar” at least pays lip service to the “unity of the human mind”. However, not all political movements that came later would be considered progress by those who came before.
Even in Republican Rome before Augustus, the political organization of France during the Middle Ages was abhorrent. Indeed, they had sworn – whether it was real or a myth, in this case, it doesn’t matter – never to have a king. The word “rex” was actually a slur they would use against political opponents. From the point of view of the Roman parliamentarian, the feudal system introduced in Europe after the fall of the Empire was to be considered a social decline, not an evolution.
Equally, for the Native Americans, the political system proposed by the European colonists was actually inferior to them. They made fun of the fact that they were under someone else’s authority. David Graeber and David Wengrow convincingly argue that the idea of individual freedom that became the basis of political development in Europe was changed in their collaboration.
To a Muslim living in Constantinople in the seventeenth century, the Istanbul of today would not only seem unrecognizable, but perhaps unlivable. The social praxis that supported the Osmanlı Devleti at the time was based on the fact that the government was not the supreme authority of the law, most social welfare was carried out by private foundations with a social constitution (awqaf), and dowry was strictly prohibited.
It is not clear, then, that social and political organization, or the way people live, can come under the category of continuous progress. It is clear that it is constantly changing and adapting to new situations. The measurement of that change depends on the opinion of the one making the judgment.
The development of artificial intelligence – or, as I prefer to call it, algorithmic intelligence – combined with new forms of digital currency, will have an impact on the way people organize their societies politically. There is no evidence yet to argue that the change it brings will be beneficial to human societies. In fact, there is growing evidence to explain the problems that already exist: more inequality, more strain on services, more surveillance, and mental decline.
It is therefore appropriate, I believe, to ask whether this change can be considered social progress—as a collective movement towards something better. Perhaps what we really need is to look back at other political parties to imagine a different future.
