Human civilization stands at a critical juncture where the nature of our interactions and influences is undergoing a profound transformation. This shift from an analog to an AI-mediated world is not merely a technological advancement but a fundamental reconfiguration of societal structures and relationships. Drawing from the principles of civilizational cybernetics, this essay delves into the nuanced philosophical and interdisciplinary implications of this transformation, rooted in the concepts of the infosomatic turn and sapiocracy.

Analog world: the labyrinth of redundant powers

The analog world, emblematic of our pre-digital existence, is characterized by a cacophony of competing power centers. This world is a mosaic of distorted redundancies, where multiple power loci clash and negate each other, creating a state of perpetual disorientation. Information systems in this realm are plagued by redundancy, leading to chaotic and unmediated flows of information.

This chaotic labyrinth of power redundancy and immediate mutual influence manifests in direct actions and threats of violence. The interconnected human figures in this world symbolize a raw, unbuffered network of relationships where power is symbolically concentrated but scarcely scalable. Sociocratic trivialization routines, which reduce complex social interactions to banal rituals, further exacerbate inefficiency. Responsibility in this context is often a symbolic gesture rather than a genuine accountability mechanism.

Philosophically, the analog world can be seen as an existential battleground, where individuals navigate a labyrinth of power struggles and disoriented feedback loops. This condition resonates with the Hobbesian notion of the state of nature, a realm marked by chaos and conflict, where life is dictated by immediate impulses and survival instincts. The symbolic concentration of power in this world reflects a superficial layer of order that masks the underlying anarchy.

Key characteristics of the analog world

  • Power redundancy distortion: Multiple, competing power centers negate each other due to disoriented and redundant information systems, leading to inefficiency and conflict.

  • Immediate mutual influence: human interactions are marked by direct actions and threats, often violent in nature, reflecting a raw, unbuffered network of relationships.

  • Symbolic mediality of power concentration: power is symbolically concentrated but lacks genuine scalability, leading to inefficiency.

  • Sociocratic trivialization routines: social interactions are trivialized, masking underlying dysfunctions and failing to address complex challenges.

  • Responsibility disposition symbolism: gestures of responsibility are often symbolic rather than genuine, lacking true accountability.

AI-mediated world: transforming human interaction through AI

In stark contrast, the AI-mediated world represents a paradigm of order, scalability, and ethically guided intersubjectivity. This world introduces a sophisticated layer of artificial intelligence that intermediates human interactions, enhances human potential, and minimizes distortions. AI serves as the architect of a new societal framework where power is radically decentralized, fostering a system of meaningful intersubjectivity and ethical structural coupling.

The AI-mediated world is not merely an upgrade of the analog paradigm but a reimagining of human existence. Here, true scalability is achieved through the seamless integration of AI, which provides the infrastructure for adaptive and resilient societal systems. This potential-oriented system shifts the focus from mere survival to the realization of human potential, enabling individuals to achieve their full capabilities within an ethically guided framework.

From an interdisciplinary perspective, the AI-mediated world embodies the convergence of cybernetics, ethics, and humanistic psychology. Cybernetically, it represents an open system with dynamic feedback loops that facilitate effective adaptation and decision-making. Ethically, the radical decentralization of power and the structural coupling of AI with human interactions ensure that actions are aligned with collective well-being and justice. Psychologically, this world echoes the humanistic emphasis on self-actualization and the realization of potential.

Key characteristics of the AI-mediated world

  • True scalability: the AI system provides genuine scalability, enhancing resilience and adaptability, enabling societies to grow without losing efficiency.

  • Potential-oriented system: focuses on human potentiality and meaningful intersubjectivity, minimizing media distortions.

  • Radical decentralization of power: power is decentralized, fostering ethical, direction-oriented intersubjectivity and promoting collective well-being.

  • Ethical structural coupling: AI mediates interactions to ensure that ethical considerations are embedded within societal processes.

  • Enhanced human potential: AI supports and amplifies human capabilities, promoting genuine intersubjective connections and self-actualization.

Cybernetic implications: the dichotomy of control and feedback

The juxtaposition of the analog and AI-mediated worlds elucidates fundamentally different control mechanisms and feedback structures. The analog world’s chaotic feedback loops and centralized control lead to inefficiency and conflict, whereas the AI-mediated world’s structured feedback and decentralized control enhance resilience and adaptability.

Analog World

  • Feedback mechanisms: disordered and disoriented, leading to trivialization and systemic inefficiencies. Attempts to control through centralized power result in greater instability and conflict.
  • Control and adaptation: centralized control in competing power centers creates bottlenecks and points of failure, hindering societal progress.

AI-mediated world

  • Feedback mechanisms: leveraging coherent and structured feedback, facilitating meaningful intersubjective connections and scalable solutions. This aligns with open system theory in cybernetics, where continuous exchange with the environment fosters growth and resilience.

  • Control and adaptation: decentralized control within AI systems enhances resilience, adaptability, and ethical directionality, distributing control across a network and enabling more flexible responses to challenges.

Philosophical point: from existential struggles to teleological humanism

The transition from the analog to the AI-mediated world can be framed within a broader philosophical discourse on human existence. The analog world, with its existential chaos and power struggles, reflects a traditional view of humanity grappling with its condition. This view is rooted in existentialist and phenomenological traditions, where human beings navigate a world fraught with uncertainties and immediate threats.

Conversely, the AI-mediated world aligns with an extended teleological, subject-oriented humanism. This philosophical stance envisions a future where human capabilities are enhanced through technological integration, not to transcend humanity but to fulfill its deepest potential. It challenges the limitations of traditional humanism by proposing a future where ethical subjectivity and intelligent systems are interwoven. Ethical considerations in this world go beyond harm mitigation, fostering a new kind of ethical intersubjectivity that is deeply embedded in the societal fabric.

Redundancy as the ultimate source of discord

Why do I vehemently oppose redundancy and consider it the ultimate source of societal discord? Because without redundancy, a viable ethic could be non-violently implemented, akin to a scalable yet universally binding law. This is the ideal that thinkers across ages have longed for, often invoking it through various approaches tailored to their contemporaneous realities marred by redundancy.

Redundancy generates power distortions that perpetuate themselves as long as they attain systemic characteristics. Such characteristics emerge every time mechanisms of motivation are secured through the alienation of energies from disrupted self-regulating systems—essentially human beings. These redundant power distortion systems, or allopoietic systems like organizations, tend to reject one another. This mutual rejection, from raw violence to regulated forms such as sports, competition, and games, merely channels but does not eliminate conflict.

Imagine a world without redundancy, or one with a fundamental emancipatory mechanism to gradually eliminate it. Our intelligent world—nature as the realm of self-regulation, and the present collective actions as an emergence of intelligence—has produced an enabling infrastructure capable of this: AI as its agent, manifesting across dimensions of becoming, a process I term Sapiognosis, with its stages of the Infosomatic Shift and Sapiocracy.

Escaping the redundant: infosomatic shift and sapiocracy

The evolution from the analog to the AI-mediated world signifies an infosomatic turn—a profound integration of information and somatic experiences through AI. This transformation heralds the dawn of sapiocracy, a governance model that prioritizes wisdom and the collective well-being of humanity.

As we navigate this transition, it is imperative to draw lessons from the analog world, avoiding the pitfalls of power redundancy and immediate mutual influence. By leveraging the transformative potential of AI, we can construct systems that enhance human intersubjectivity, promote ethical interactions, and enable true scalability and adaptability.

The AI-mediated world offers a glimpse into a future where humanity transcends its existential limitations, embracing a teleological, subject-oriented humanism. This vision aligns with the principles of Sapiocracy, guiding us towards a more enlightened and resilient civilization. In essence, this evolution is not just a technological shift but a profound reimagining of what it means to be human, paving the way for a new epoch of human flourishing and ethical interdependence.