An essay on artificial intelligence, digital fascism, and utopian communism

In recent days, statements from employees leaving artificial intelligence companies have appeared in the press, accompanied by somewhat speculative remarks: "Artificial intelligence could bring about the end of humanity in 10 years."

Will artificial intelligence bring about the end of humanity?

Or is humanity at the very beginning of the greatest technological, economic, and social revolution it has experienced since the Industrial Revolution? How will this revolution change the world? I intend this to be an essay, avoiding prophecy. 

The Industrial Revolution did not just bring the steam engine, factories, and railways. It changed the economic system. Capitalism replaced mercantilism. With the French and American revolutions, monarchies began to decline, and republics and nation-states began to rise. The bourgeoisie and the working class replaced nobles and serfs.  

The great inequalities created by capitalism gave birth to socialism and communism.

Labor movements, unions, social democracy, and eventually the welfare state emerged.

The technological revolution did not start in the factory and stay in the factory. It changed the world's economic, social, and political order.

Now we are at the beginning of a similar, perhaps even greater, rupture. I have been writing about this since around 2020 and explaining it at various meetings. I also discussed it in my book, "Turkey's Factory Settings for the 21st Century – Counter-Revolution in the Economy," published in 2024.

Developments in artificial intelligence and robotics will not just eliminate some professions. They will change the economic system. They will change classes. They will change the state. They will change democracy. 

But in which direction?  

The Industrial Revolution replaced human muscle power with machines. But the need for humans did not disappear. Those who could not work in agriculture went to the factory. Those replaced by machines in the factory moved to the service sector. Humans found new areas of work for themselves.

Now, machines are beginning to perform the work done by both our muscle power and our brains, in fields, factories, transportation, offices, and the service sector.

Moreover, when you combine artificial intelligence with robots, the fundamental equation of capitalism that has existed for several hundred years begins to change.

Our equation until yesterday, "Natural resources + capital + labor = Production,"

Is evolving in the near future toward the equation, "Natural resources + capital + energy + artificial intelligence + robot = Production." 

Where will humans be within this production equation and its consumption? How will sharing and distribution take place?

If we are not going to talk about distribution, and if we are not going to put humans into the economy, what is the point of discussing the economy? In the words of Carl Menger, one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics, "The beginning and end of every economy is the human being."

Historian and futurist Yuval Noah Harari says that if humans are no longer needed in the production process as a result of the combination of artificial intelligence and robots, or if very few humans are needed, humans could be very dangerously divided into two categories:

On one side, a small elite that develops, finances, and controls the technology; "useful people."

On the other side, "useless people" who have been disconnected from the production process.

Harari stops there. I go one step further and ask a much darker question: If the economic system no longer needs billions of people, why would the hegemons and the political system need these people?

Who, and what economic and political power, will protect the right to life of billions of people declared "useless"? When we think about human history, we must also consider the dark scenarios that could extend to mass killings.

The steam engine, one of the fundamental technologies of the Industrial Revolution, did not change the world overnight either. First, steam systems were developed in England to drain water flooding coal mines. Thomas Savery's pump (1698), Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric engine (1712), and from the 1760s onwards, James Watt's great leap in efficiency...

It took many years for the steam engine to spread to factories and transportation. The 1789 French Revolution, the decline of monarchies, the rise of nation-states... All of these were long processes...

Today, however, information spreads instantly to every corner of the world. Technological development is progressing very rapidly.

The future is arriving faster than we expected.

The world faces a dual fork in the road.

Instead of neoliberalism, either "Digital feudalism and subsequently digital fascism" will come under the control of big tech giant companies.

Or, there will be a shift toward an advanced Welfare State understanding that prioritizes fair distribution and includes state capitalism.

Not only the companies that own these technologies, but the entire society will share in the massive productivity increase that artificial intelligence and robots will provide. Technology monopolies will be restricted. A portion of the earnings created by artificial intelligence and robots will be transferred to society through taxes. Basic public services such as health, education, and social security will be expanded. Perhaps new distribution mechanisms that we are starting to discuss today, such as Universal Basic Income, will emerge.

Instead of opposing technology, deciding who will own the wealth created by technology should be important…

If the world does not choose the second path, the possible result: Digital feudalism and subsequently digital fascism…

Perhaps after the world experiences such a painful "Digital Feudalism-fascism" period and this system creates its own economic and social contradictions, a completely different order will emerge.

This is where the third stage, which I call "utopian communism," comes into play.

But first, let's elaborate a bit on the digital feudalism and fascism scenario:

Imagine a few giant companies that own artificial intelligence, robots, data, chips, energy, and communication infrastructure. Billions of people against them... The lords of the new world will not own land; they will own data, algorithms, chips, and artificial intelligence. Moreover, the power of these new lords will not be merely economic.

They will know you. They will know where you go. They will know what you buy. They will know what you are angry about, what you are afraid of. And perhaps they will also know with which sentence they can persuade you. They will operate such propaganda mechanisms that they will influence the votes you cast in elections. 

Hitler and his likes did not have such technology at their disposal. Today's digital dictators have such capabilities. Moreover, these are no longer just theoretical discussions we are having about the future.

According to research recently published by Reuters, it has been revealed that an artificial intelligence called Claude, developed by Anthropic, was attempted to be used in war, espionage, and cyber operations.

Artificial intelligence is no longer just replacing humans in the factory. It is becoming a part of war, intelligence, political propaganda, manipulating people, and state power.

According to Anthropic's findings, a French-speaking actor used Claude to conduct activities targeting a total of 42 organizations, including political parties, media outlets, think tanks, and software service providers in Europe.

Information was collected. Attempts were made to seize passwords and data. Special systems were developed to publish the information obtained about people. Think about where this could lead.

In the past, political propaganda was done like this: You hang posters on the streets, you place newspaper ads, you organize rallies, you appear on television channels that grant speaking rights to the opposition if any remain, and you tell the same message to millions of people.

Social media changed this. You can divide society into groups such as age and gender and give a different message to each group. Artificial intelligence has the capacity to go far beyond these different messages…

Know every voter individually. Learn what they are afraid of. Learn what they are angry about. Find their weak point. And produce a political message exclusive only to them. And do all of this for millions of people at the same time. 

Elections can be held. The ballot box may not disappear. There may be opposition parties. But if the process that forms people's political preferences is managed by algorithms, can we still call the regime we have democracy?

Where does the voter's free will begin, and where does the algorithm's guidance end?

This is why the relationship Daron Acemoğlu (1) has recently established between artificial intelligence, the concentration of technological power, and the future of liberal democracy is important. Acemoğlu warns that the development of technology in the wrong direction could weaken the economic and political power of workers, concentrate power in large companies, and further deepen the crisis that liberal democracy is already experiencing.

We cannot claim that the increase in prosperity provided by technological development will spread to the entire society. This can only be achieved not through automatic prosperity growth, but through great class and social struggles. 

In the Industrial Revolution, there was no increase in prosperity for all segments of society either. In the early periods of capitalism, workers, including children, worked 14-16 hours a day. There was no social security. There was no retirement. Technology did not bring these. Class contradictions, social struggle, and unions brought them. The dynamism of world balances formed due to the competition between capitalism and socialism brought the dialectic. 

After the 1990s, however, this balance was disrupted with neoliberalism. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, the neoliberal system did not feel the need for a welfare state and strong democratic institutions. Unions weakened, and wealth became increasingly concentrated in the hands of a smaller group. (2)

The rules-based world order is collapsing. We are experiencing the process of the emergence of a new world order, new hegemonic powers, and hegemonic states. We are witnessing regional wars, though not great world wars like in the old major changes. 

With neoliberalism, income and wealth gaps between classes have grown, especially in many developed countries. Although income gaps between countries on a global scale have narrowed in some periods, the concentration of wealth and technological power in an increasingly smaller segment is creating a new form of inequality.

We are entering the artificial intelligence revolution in such an unequal world. And if the ownership of the new tools of production is also concentrated in the hands of a few giant companies, the wealth inequality we see today could remain as an insignificant inequality in the future.

In the future of the artificial intelligence revolution, another major contradiction within capitalism itself is emerging.

Artificial intelligence manages companies. Robots perform production in fields and factories. The greatest productivity increase humanity has ever seen is taking place.

So, who will buy the goods produced?

Data centers, artificial intelligence, and robots do not receive salaries, do not buy cars, and do not go on vacation. If you remove the majority of people from the production process, you also eliminate their income. A person without income cannot consume. And capitalism, which destroys its consumer, cannot survive.

The great contradiction that capitalism cannot solve also emerges here.

On one side, a production power greater than humanity has ever seen before...

On the other side, billions of people who have no income and consumption power because they are out of the production process...

If societies cannot manage this transformation with an advanced welfare state understanding and the world first enters a period of digital feudalism and digital fascism, could these contradictions eventually give rise to a completely different system?

For a few years now, I have been calling this "utopian communism," somewhat provocatively.

I am not talking about the Soviet Union. I am not talking about the old communist system where the state owned all the factories. I am talking about another society where state capitalism is also present, and where artificial intelligence and robots create massive productivity.

Production continues even if humans do not work. Much more than society's needs can be produced. And the prosperity born from this production is distributed not only to the shareholders of a few companies that own artificial intelligence and robots, but to the entire society.

Universal Basic Income, which is being discussed today, could be one of the first examples of this. Perhaps its current form will remain quite primitive compared to the system that will emerge in the future.

Which one will it be?

Digital feudalism and subsequently digital fascism?

An advanced welfare state that prioritizes fair distribution?

Or a new order that I call "utopian communism," which we might give a completely different name to in the future, at the end of all these contradictions?

It is also a painful fact of history that great wars occur while old systems collapse, new world orders are established, and new economic systems and new hegemonic states emerge in the world.

In short, the Industrial Revolution did not just change the mode of production.

It changed the world.

The artificial intelligence revolution will change it too.

We are creating a technology that could remove humans from the production equation. Will we also remove humans from the economy, social structure, and politics?

Will this change turn into a catastrophe, as the employees of artificial intelligence companies, who have recently appeared frequently in the press, say?

Or will we use the massive wealth created by technology to build a world where humans live more freely, more equally, and more happily?

I do not know.

(1) I had heavily criticized Daron Acemoğlu in his book "Why Nations Fail" for his biased assessments regarding the founding period of the Republic in Turkey. My criticisms on this subject still continue. For those interested, the link to the article I wrote on this subject in 12 Punto on October 20, 2024, is attached. https://12punto.com.tr/yazarlar/meric-koyatasi/daron-acemoglu-ve-nobel-uzerine-ya-iktisat-tarihi-bilmiyorlar-ya-da-56238

(2) I had previously discussed the effect of the capitalism-socialism competition on the welfare state and democracy, and the danger of "digital fascism" that could emerge after neoliberalism. For those interested, my article dated March 30, 2025: "The insurance of democracy was not capitalism, but communism." https://12punto.com.tr/yazarlar/meric-koyatasi/demokrasinin-sigortasi-kapitalizm-degil-komunizmdi-79872