Is Artificial Intelligence Social Evolution and Progress?

Proponents of developing Artificial Intelligence — and, theoretically, AGI — argue that it will usher in a new era of human wellbeing. This argument is underpinned by the idea of social progress. However, though it is true that societies are constantly changing, it is not clear that this change is always for the better.

Our time faces some serious issues: poverty and inequality, illness, food insecurity, conflict, or the ecological crisis, amongst others. Current LLM models have not yet proven any of the claims that they will help resolve them. Techno-optimists argue this is merely a transition phase, claiming that the immense cognitive surplus of advanced AI is precisely the tool required to model climate patterns or optimize global food distribution. Yet, this promise reveals a contradiction.

The staggering capital poured into this technology is continuously justified by the speculative hope that it might eventually solve these crises. Private-sector AI investments reached $757.3 billion during the 2013–2025 period, with total investment hitting $581.7 billion in 2025 alone. Propelled by massive hyperscaler data center build-outs, global AI spending and infrastructure investment is forecast to exceed $2.5 trillion in 2026, on a trajectory toward nearly $3 trillion by 2028.

By contrast, a recent study shows that a fraction of this infrastructure spend—$318 billion per year—could eliminate most extreme poverty worldwide. Similarly, while experts around the world continuously warn about the ecological crisis and our strain on resources, the current AI infrastructure does nothing to help it, rather drastically increases it.

One might debate these specific figures or the logic behind tackling such issues. However, it highlights a delusion: we are spending trillions to build an automated intelligence in the hope it will fix our world, while actively doing the opposite.

It would then seem that a more factual argument is that it is propping up the U.S. economy by creating a mirage of growth. It is being designed, as I have argued, to optimize mechanisms of surveillance and financial control. And, on the global stage, is fueling an arms race—big powers must dominate this new territory or be dominated by it. In all of these dynamics, there is a carefully manufactured aura of inevitability.

This is what L.M. Sacasas defines as the “Borg Complex”. He writes that “the adoption of AI is driven chiefly by the rhetoric of inevitability exacerbated by the related logics of the prisoner’s dilemma and an arms race.” He continues “I’m calling this tendency, with a nod to Herman and Chomsky, manufactured inevitability.”

Societies are continuously changing and adapting to new circumstances. Ours has very rapidly —in the context of human history— adapted to changes brought about by industrialization, new forms of finance, transport, and technology. In the process, it has created a monoculture: what I call the world system, as opposed to the world order.

The world system is the basis upon which our societies function and which are distinctive from previous ones: dependence on oil, finance through banking, and state control. These foundations are the same for every country; however, as is obvious, they are not equally strong in all. The world order, by contrast, is the political arrangements — or lack thereof — that states use to deal with each other.

Every state that is considered a big or middle power works under the same system. China, the U.S., Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, and Germany — they all share the same system. This has created the perception that if a state, big or small, wants to be respected and grow, it has to adhere to this system. This, in turn, has narrowed our collective political imagination.

In the book The Dawn of Everything, authors David Graeber and David Wengrow make a very compelling case that Native American communities were just as politically aware and sophisticated as their European colonizers, if not more so. They had simply refused to organize themselves in the same way because their political ideas and principles were different. In fact, the authors go further.

They quote examples that date back at least 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. Burial places and Paleolithic “monuments” show that humans had some type of political organization. One of the most striking examples dates back to around 13,000 years ago, in Göbekli Tepe, modern Türkiye.

Here, a large ceremonial complex was built which undoubtedly required the planning and cooperation of many people. What, according to the authors, has most intrigued scholars of different disciplines is “the apparent proof they offer that hunter-gatherer societies had evolved institutions to support major public works, projects, and monumental constructions, and thus had a complex social hierarchy prior to their adoption of farming”.

The point they make is that humans have been thinking politically for at least two hundred thousands of years. They state that every “reputable scholar” at least pays lip service to the “psychic unity of mankind”. However, not every political organization that came later would have been considered progress by those who came before.

For a Roman senator of the Republic before Augustus, the political organization of France during the Middle Ages would have been repulsive. Indeed, they had sworn — whether it actually happened or was a myth is, in this case, irrelevant — never to have a king. The term “rex” was actually a grave accusation they would use against political rivals. From the perspective of a Roman senator, the feudal system installed in Europe after the fall of the Empire would have been considered social degeneration, not evolution.

Equally, for Native Americans, the political system that was proposed by the European colonizers was actually inferior to their own. They mocked the fact that they were subjected to another’s authority. David Graeber and David Wengrow very convincingly argue that the concept of individual freedom that became the bedrock of political development in Europe was adapted from interactions with them.

For a Muslim living in Constantinople in the seventeenth century, current Istanbul would not only be unrecognizable, but probably unlivable. The social praxis which underpinned the Osmanlı Devleti at that time was based on the fact that the government was not the ultimate legislative authority, much of public welfare was conducted through private foundations with a public charter (awqaf), and usury was vehemently forbidden.

It is not clear, then, that social and political organization, or how humans live, can fall under the category of continuous progress. It is clear that it is constantly changing and adapting to new circumstances. The valuation of that change depends on the perspective of the one who makes the judgment.

The development of artificial intelligence — or, as I prefer to call it, algorithmic intelligence — coupled with new forms of digital money, will have an effect on how humans politically arrange their societies. There is not yet evidence to argue that the change brought about by it will be beneficial for human societies. There is, actually, mounting evidence that is excarberating the problems already present: more inequality, more strain on resources, more surveillance, and more cognitive decline.

It is therefore justified, I believe, to ask whether this change can be considered social progress —as in moving collectively forward to something better. Perhaps what we really need is to look back at other political organizations in order to imagine a different future.