Artificial Intelligence vs. Natural Stupidity?

While multibillion-dollar investments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continue in the United States, ideas and attitudes favorable to its public regulation seem to be gaining strength, even within the Republican Party. The midterm elections have confirmed this, resulting in a shift in majorities in favor of the Democrats, who are more in favor of this regulation.

One of the campaign's battlegrounds has been precisely the data centers of AI companies, which have generated considerable rejection in local US communities. Today, statements from some senior tech executives are heard suggesting that they need "better communication" with these communities, and there is speculation about the possibility that the installation of new centers could move outside the US. Are they suddenly becoming reasonable? Let's put this into context.

Over the last fifteen years, a whole internet galaxy of "theorists" of the current technological revolution has emerged with force, some of whom are advisors or have direct influence on the current American executive branch. One of the most influential, the British philosopher Nick Land, has given the movement a name: Dark Enlightenment (A. Miranda proposes a cartography of this movement inThe Dark Enlightenment, 2026, in Spanish The Dark Enlightenment, published by Grup 62). I think it would be a mistake not to pay attention to them.

The general tone is one of great confidence in technology combined with a negative anthropological vision, far beyond classic liberal skepticism, advocating a defense of inegalitarianism, a frontal opposition to progressivism—both of a social nature and of the woke style which they ridicule—, and also a negative view of democracy, seen as an obstacle to progress. It is a movement born of the internet and social networks, very predominantly male, decentralized, and aimed at new generations that are politically disillusioned.

It is a movement located beyond both anti-paternalistic libertarianism and the nationalist populism (MAGA) of Trump's first term (2016-2020). The defenestration of Steve Bannon as a White House advisor is significant of the ideological shift in Trump's second term (2024-2028).

Although we find references to renowned thinkers such as O. Spengler, C. Schmitt or L. Strauss, we are not facing a new version of conservatism that makes the defense of the statu quo, order, traditional values and stability the pillars of the political and socioeconomic system. They are not traditional reactionaries, but a group of visionaries who advocate for a sociopolitical change that signifies a new stage in the history of humanity based on the current technological revolution (AI and post-capitalism). It is not a nostalgic movement. The center of gravity is located only in the future.

Some of its central ideas are not new. For example, the appeal to the “creative destruction” of capitalism. Schumpeter masterfully formulated it during the Second World War: “In breaking down the pre-capitalist framework of society, capitalism broke not only the barriers that prevented its progress, but also the buttresses that prevented its collapse” (Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942).

The alleged incompatibility between freedom and democracy (an idea with which the businessman Peter Thiel travels the world) is also not new. It is a question widely analyzed by the best liberal tradition (A. Tocqueville, J. Stuart Mill, I. Berlin, J. Rawls, Ch. Taylor) that formulates the underlying tensions that effectively exist between those two concepts, which, however, does not prevent their convenient articulation in an institutional system in which freedom and democracy mark a series of mutual limits and controls.

With a casual style with uninhibited references to science fiction, The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, this countercultural and anti-system movement emerges, which bets on the deregulated market, an authoritarian executive, a contempt for international law and democracies that incentivize corruption, as well as the press and universities—seen as two factors of progressive hegemony. The bet is in favor of cultural homogenization and the preservation of the “natural hierarchies” of humans (progressivism, they say, leads to a downward anti-selection of social groups).

Thus, they understand that it is necessary to convert the United States into a company with an efficient president-CEO, suppressing most civil servants and procuring a stable elite (C. Yarvin). It is also necessary to remove the moral brakes of democratic universalism that forgets what human nature is (P. Thiel), and to "accelerate" the deconstruction or self-destruction of capitalism in favor of a "transhumanism of supermen" (cyborgs) based on the fusion of biology and cybernetics (N. Land).

Are these merely dystopias created in “garages” by mindless internet users with an adolescent mentality? Is it a collateral ideological danger of AI? Today no one knows the consequences of AI, neither its defenders, who focus on the advantages, nor its critics, who highlight its risks, even destructive ones. However, what can be stated from the perspective of political theory is the lack of quality in the analyses. In this sense, another question would be: is Artificial Intelligence (AI) compatible with Natural Stupidity (NS)?

The irrational components of Homo sapiens should never be underestimated. I believe that given a good portion of religious myths and common superstitions manifested even by "well-read and well-traveled" people, as well as above all the practical behaviors of humans throughout history, perhaps it would be necessary to start changing the name of Homo sapiens to characterize our species. Don't you think?