A special analysis by Gloria Major
Nothing about our current political moment can be properly understood through conventional analytical frameworks. The surface-level spectacle—policy disputes, personality conflicts, partisan divisions—masks a far more profound transformation. What we are witnessing is not merely a shift in political power but the first manifestations of a comprehensive civilizational reordering that will fundamentally reshape social, economic, and governance structures worldwide.
This transformation transcends traditional political categories. It is neither conservative nor progressive, neither democratic nor authoritarian in conventional terms. It represents instead a fundamental shift from human-centered governance paradigms that have dominated since the Enlightenment toward machine-centered systems that will increasingly dictate the parameters of human activity, choice, and organization.
The dismantling of republican oligarchy
Current political disruptions can best be understood not as random chaos or personality-driven aberrations, but as the systematic demolition of what might be called the “republican oligarchy” model—a governance system in which financial elites and corporate interests maintain predominant influence while preserving democratic appearances.
This system, which has functioned with relative stability since World War II, provided both wealth and strategic anonymity to an ownership class of dynastic interests. Its genius lay in its ability to maintain elite control while distributing just enough prosperity to ensure general population acquiescence.
The emerging system maintains power concentration at the top but shifts the fundamental organizational principles from human-centered management to algorithmic governance. Political figures like Trump function less as conventional leaders than as disruptive agents clearing institutional undergrowth for this transformation—often unwittingly serving larger structural shifts they neither control nor fully comprehend.
Evidence of this dismantling appears in multiple domains. The systematic degradation of civil service expertise, the deliberate undermining of diplomatic norms, the open attacks on judicial independence—these represent not merely power grabs but the systematic destabilization of human-dependent governance infrastructure to create space for algorithmic alternatives.
The machine-centered alternative taking shape
What replaces the destabilized system is not a return to previous authoritarian models but the emergence of governance structures fundamentally dependent on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and comprehensive surveillance infrastructure.
China’s Social Credit System provides perhaps the most visible prototype. As documented by scholars like Rogier Creemers of Leiden University, this system uses algorithmic assessment to regulate behavior through rewards and penalties. In his 2018 paper “China’s Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control,” Creemers notes how the system “aims to regulate behavior beyond the traditional legal sphere” through technology-enabled oversight.
These systems are rapidly proliferating beyond China. A 2019 Carnegie Endowment report documented how at least 75 countries worldwide have deployed AI surveillance tools, often importing Chinese technologies through “Digital Silk Road” initiatives. These systems arrive marketed as “smart city” technology but establish the fundamental infrastructure for algorithmic governance.
While Western adoption appears superficially different, the underlying trajectory remains similar. Consider documented deployments:
- The European Union’s 2021 Artificial Intelligence Act, while ostensibly creating guardrails around AI, simultaneously establishes the regulatory framework for integrating algorithmic decision-making into governance functions.
- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Automated Targeting System uses algorithms to assign risk scores to travelers and imports, with limited transparency or oversight, as documented in their own privacy impact assessments.
- The UK’s National Health Service has increasingly implemented algorithmic systems in healthcare delivery, with a 2020 study in npj Digital Medicine finding that AI tools were being used for diagnostics, triage, and treatment planning across multiple NHS trusts, though precise percentages of algorithmic involvement vary widely by application and region.
- Japan has expanded digital monitoring capabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, though primarily through its COCOA contact tracing app rather than through the J-Alert disaster warning system. The Japanese government did employ drones for public space monitoring during pandemic restrictions, according to the Japan Times, though this was implemented as a temporary public health measure rather than a permanent surveillance system.
These systems represent not merely technological assistance for human governance but the progressive transfer of certain decision-making functions from human judgment to algorithmic determination.
Military rivalry accelerates the transition
This transformation gains particular urgency through great power competition. As military systems increasingly depend on artificial intelligence—from autonomous weapons to battlefield decision support to intelligence processing—nations face existential pressure to embrace machine-centered governance models or risk strategic obsolescence.
The U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence’s 2021 Final Report explicitly acknowledged this reality: “AI-enabled capabilities will be the tools of first resort in a new era of conflict,” and “Defending against AI-capable adversaries operating at machine speeds and scales without employing AI is an invitation to disaster.”
Similar perspectives emerge from other major powers. Russia’s 2021 National Security Strategy emphasized “accelerated implementation of artificial intelligence technologies” as a strategic imperative. China’s 2017 New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan declared AI “a new focus of international competition” that will “deepen the application of AI in social governance.”
This competition creates powerful incentives for governance systems to reorganize around machine capabilities rather than human limitations. As international security becomes increasingly dependent on algorithmic advantage, governance structures face pressure to align with these technological imperatives rather than traditional human-centered values.
The economic transformation already underway
Perhaps the most visible manifestation of this shift appears in economic reorganization. The rapid acceleration of automation, robotics integration, and AI systems deployment is fundamentally altering the relationship between human labor and economic production.
The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Future of Jobs Report projected that by 2025, the time spent on current tasks by humans and machines will be equal, with machines handling approximately 50% of all labor hours in the analyzed industries. The International Federation of Robotics reported that annual industrial robot installations reached approximately 384,000 units in 2020, with projections of continued growth despite pandemic disruptions.
Importantly, this reorganization creates a fundamental dilemma for governance systems: how to distribute resources and maintain social cohesion when human labor becomes increasingly tangential to economic production. Traditional models of work-based resource distribution cannot function in economies where machines perform most economically valuable tasks.
Two potential avenues emerge as means to address this transition:
First, universal basic income proposals gain increasing attention. The Stanford Basic Income Lab has documented over 30 UBI experiments worldwide as of 2021, including significant programs in Finland, Canada, and Kenya. As former World Bank economist Michal Rutkowski noted in a 2018 analysis, these experiments reflect “growing recognition that traditional employment may not remain viable as the primary mechanism for resource distribution in highly automated economies.”
Second, the pursuit of biotechnological advances in human longevity gains momentum. The National Institutes of Health maintains an active research portfolio in this area, with its National Institute on Aging funding multiple studies on interventions to extend healthy lifespan. Private investment in longevity research has also accelerated, with companies like Calico, Altos Labs, and Unity Biotechnology attracting billions in funding from investors including Jeff Bezos, Yuri Milner, and Google.
These twin developments—alternative resource distribution and extended lifespan—may function as powerful inducements for populations to accept governance transformations that might otherwise face significant resistance.
Civil liberties in the Machine Age
As governance systems reorganize around algorithmic capabilities, traditional civil liberties face profound challenges. Rights frameworks designed for human-centered governance fit poorly with systems optimized for machine efficiency and predictability.
Privacy rights particularly face existential challenges in systems dependent on comprehensive data collection and analysis. As documented by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the volume of personal data collected by both government agencies and private companies has grown exponentially, with limited transparency or meaningful consent.
Similarly, free expression rights encounter new constraints when algorithms determine information access and distribution. A 2021 study published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication documented how content moderation algorithms on major platforms review millions of posts daily, often with limited human oversight or appeal mechanisms.
Due process rights face particular challenges when algorithmic assessment replaces human judgment in consequential decisions. A 2018 study published in Science Advances found that risk assessment algorithms in criminal justice contexts often produce results that vary significantly by demographic factors, raising profound questions about fairness and accountability.
Constitutional scholar Julie Cohen of Georgetown Law School observed in her 2019 book “Between Truth and Power” that “The liberal democratic model of governance and its associated rights frameworks were not designed for the algorithmic age and require fundamental reimagining to remain relevant.”
Population management through stratification
The transition to machine-centered civilization will not affect all population segments equally. Those with education, skills, and resources aligned with the new paradigm will maintain advantages, while those without relevant capabilities face progressive marginalization.
This stratification appears already in multiple indicators. Labor market data shows divergent outcomes between knowledge workers and those in sectors vulnerable to automation. The OECD’s 2019 Employment Outlook documented growing “automation disparities” with different employment trajectories based on education level and technical skill proficiency.
Meanwhile, mortality data reveals growing lifespan disparities along socioeconomic lines. A 2022 study published in JAMA found that the lifespan gap between the highest and lowest income percentiles in the United States increased from approximately 5.1 years in 2001 to 12.6 years in 2014 for men, and from 3.9 years to 8.3 years for women during the same period.
These divergent trajectories suggest the possibility of what historian Yuval Noah Harari terms in his 2018 book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” as a potential “evolutionary split”—the emergence of dramatically different life outcomes for different population segments based on their relationship to technological systems.
Global implementation already advancing
While this transformation may sound theoretical or distant, evidence suggests it is already substantially advanced in multiple regions. China’s comprehensive integration of surveillance, social credit, and algorithmic governance provides the most visible example, but similar patterns emerge across developed economies.
Japan’s Society 5.0 initiative explicitly aims to create what the government terms a “super-smart society” with comprehensive integration of cyber and physical systems. Its implementation includes sensor-based urban monitoring, algorithmic public service allocation, and integration of internet-of-things technologies throughout urban environments, as documented in official Cabinet Office publications.
Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative similarly deploys comprehensive sensor networks, facial recognition systems, and predictive algorithms for governance functions ranging from traffic management to public health surveillance, as detailed in the government’s own program documentation.
Even in Western democracies, the fundamental infrastructure for algorithmic governance rapidly emerges through initiatives often framed in terms of efficiency or security rather than governance transformation. The EU’s Digital Services Act establishes comprehensive data collection and algorithmic oversight mechanisms potentially adaptable to broader governance applications.
The end of humanism as organizing principle
This transition represents more than technological change; it signifies the gradual replacement of humanism as civilization’s organizing principle. The humanist tradition—emerging from classical antiquity, refined through the Renaissance, and codified in Enlightenment thought—placed human judgment, dignity, and freedom at the center of governance design.
This tradition shaped modern democratic systems through concepts like individual rights, representative government, and constitutional constraints. Its central premise—that human judgment, however flawed, should remain the final authority in governance decisions—faces fundamental challenge from systems capable of processing information and making determinations at scales and speeds that human cognition cannot match.
Philosopher Luciano Floridi of Oxford University noted in his 2019 paper “What the Near Future of Artificial Intelligence Could Be” that “We are witnessing a transformation in how we conceptualize humanity’s place in the infosphere” as algorithmic systems increasingly outperform human decision-making across domains.
This shift occurs not through explicit rejection of humanist values but through their gradual subordination to technological imperatives. Rights, representation, and human dignity remain rhetorically central while practical governance increasingly operates according to algorithmic optimization largely indifferent to these concepts.
Potential benefits and catastrophic risks
This transition presents both potential benefits and profound risks. On the positive side, algorithmic governance could potentially address longstanding human governance failures:
- Decisions based on comprehensive data analysis rather than ideological bias
- Resource allocation optimized for efficiency rather than political advantage
- Long-term planning horizons impossible in electoral systems
- Reduced corruption through automated oversight and transparency
- Enhanced capability to address complex challenges like climate change
However, these potential benefits come with profound risks:
- Algorithmic systems optimizing for metrics that fail to capture human flourishing
- Loss of human agency in fundamental life decisions
- Surveillance infrastructure enabling unprecedented oppression
- Technological dependency creating civilizational fragility
- Value lock-in through systems resistant to fundamental revision
Perhaps most concerning is the possibility that once this transition advances beyond certain thresholds, human ability to redirect or fundamentally alter these systems may progressively diminish. As governance systems become increasingly dependent on algorithmic management, human capacity to assert alternative values or organizational principles may diminish.
Looking beyond conventional politics
Understanding our moment through this lens reveals why conventional political analysis increasingly fails to explain observed patterns. The destabilization of traditional governance norms, the apparent contradictions in policy approaches, the seemingly chaotic governance decisions—these make sense not as conventional politics but as manifestations of a system in fundamental transition.
This framework explains patterns otherwise puzzling: why financial markets sometimes respond positively to governance disruption, why technology companies gain influence transcending traditional corporate power, why seemingly opposed political systems increasingly adopt similar surveillance and control technologies.
It also explains the profound sense of disorientation many citizens experience—the feeling that familiar political categories and expectations no longer adequately explain observed reality. This disorientation reflects not political confusion but accurate perception of a genuinely transformative period.
Meeting the civilizational challenge
The transition to machine-centered civilization represents perhaps the most significant reorganization of human society since the Industrial Revolution—a transformation that will fundamentally alter governance structures, economic organization, and social relations. Like previous transformations, it brings both potential benefits and catastrophic risks.
What differs from previous transitions is the potential irreversibility of this shift. Once governance systems reorganize around algorithmic capabilities and human decision-making becomes increasingly peripheral, our ability to reassert alternative values or organizational principles may progressively diminish.
This reality demands analysis transcending conventional political frameworks. Understanding Trump, Biden, or any current political figure requires seeing them not as causal agents but as transitional figures operating within a far larger technological and civilizational transformation—one that will continue regardless of which parties or personalities temporarily occupy formal authority positions.
For citizens concerned about democratic governance, this framework suggests attending less to personality-driven political theater and more to the fundamental technological infrastructure and algorithmic systems progressively assuming governance functions. The most consequential decisions affecting future governance likely occur not in legislative chambers or executive offices but in research labs, technical standards committees, and algorithm design teams largely invisible to public scrutiny.
The civilization emerging before our eyes will not be stopped by conventional political action. The question is whether human values, dignity, and agency can be effectively incorporated into technological systems increasingly determining our collective future, or whether these values will be progressively subordinated to algorithmic imperatives optimizing for metrics indifferent to human flourishing.
This is the true challenge beyond the spectacle of daily politics—a civilizational test that will determine the character and quality of human life for generations to come.
Gloria Major, Morgan Treadwell, and Taylor Veritatis are the founding editors of Beyond the Spectacle, an independent platform examining governance patterns and their implications for democratic institutions.