From representative democracy to representative intelligence: the improbable probabilistic impulse of critical thinking by AI

The rapid decline of the power of representative democracy and the weakening of democratic governance mechanisms that we are currently witnessing are directly related to the decline of our critical faculties. The latter have undergone a profound transformation that can be analyzed on two levels. On the one hand, we can observe an evident increase in the amount of information available, in the form of data, reports and news, along with greater dissemination of higher education qualifications, which could give the impression of an improvement in people’s cultural and critical abilities. On the other hand, there is a rather hidden, insidious process of weakening, if not paralyzing, critical thinking, which is carried out through various means, most of them digital. From advertising and sponsored content to content creation, copywriters and influencers. From social media, especially corporate and mainstream platforms, to self-help books and the profusion of coaches of all kinds. All these are elements that have contributed to the weakening and fragmentation, through techniques of distraction, “brainwashing”, or the dissemination of unchallenging or inane content or material (the Oxford’s definition of “brain rot”), of the ability to think critically and complexly. However, with the popularization of generative AI systems, whose applications have quickly become some of the most downloaded on the planet, this process of impoverishment has reached a higher dimension, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

One of the dangers of representative democracy, which makes it a much less democratic political system than direct democracy, is the presence of corporate lobbying, which reproduces and amplifies the legitimacy of hierarchical and extractive economic structures that are clearly incompatible with democracy, since a corporation is, by definition, an undemocratic entity.

The act of delegating implies a distancing from the original essence of what is being delegated, unless strict measures are implemented to limit interference and damage. In analogy with what happens in the political sphere, where we accept corporate lobbying, whenever we embrace corporate products designed to produce and create knowledge based on probabilistic and statistical principles — thus reproducing uncritical dominant ideas and preventing us from taking unexplored paths — we are delegating our critical faculties to corporate powers.

In the case of generative AI, corporate lobbying in the political sphere takes the form of algorithms, which set a direction for thinking that amplifies and supports corporate powers, while rendering invisible critical ideas that could challenge extractivist economies and subvert power structures.

Therefore, due to the accelerated spread of artificial intelligence systems, our critical faculties are being delegated to corporations owned by the same techno-feudal actors who are undermining our formal representative democracies.

While AI is considered a threat to democracy — whatever that word means — due to unethical practices and biases, a more dangerous and insidious problem is its impact on the thought process and the capacity for critical thinking and dissent.

However, delegation is not the only threat to critical thinking. Another influencing factor is fragmentation.

Fragmentation is a key feature of our era, one that is having a profound effect on virtually every aspect of life. Its modern origins, in addition to the increasing specialization of work, can be found in what I call discontinuities in the socio-cultural timeline. Borrowing the term from mathematics, where it means that an equation has a critical point — the property of being mathematically non-continuous — discontinuities can be applied to society to indicate critical points that disrupt social continuity, creating abrupt changes. Regarding the fragmentation of thought, some of these critical points have had more influence than others: the introduction of scientific management and the creation of the assembly line, for example, have profoundly transformed our way of thinking and living, leading to an increasing loss of unity, which influences the processes of thought and creation. The current acceleration of industrial production and urban life, changes in advertising techniques, and the introduction of smartphones and social media contribute significantly to the fragmentary nature of contemporary thinking. Today, this fragmentation is reaching a new level with the silent and insidious introduction of artificial intelligence systems, conceived as a sequence of combined fragments based on probabilistic and statistical models, as tools for creation in the field of writing. The completeness of the process, essential for real understanding, is eliminated through fragmentation.

The probabilistic and statistical models that govern AI systems, although they can be extremely useful and fruitful in many different fields — from biomedicine to environmental sciences, among many others — seem to be the antithesis of the thought process necessary to achieve critical thinking and, if necessary, dissent, in the context of forming a critical view of society.

Furthermore, marginalized ideas, underrepresented in the probabilistic-statistical nature of algorithms, are often the ones that enlighten society through a visionary perspective. In fact, the most important advances in history have often been the result of radical ideas that, despite having little visibility, challenged and transformed the status quo.

The essence of thinking consists of selecting ideas and interrelating them in complex and meaningful ways that require consciousness, emotions, and feelings as key elements for the thought process to take place. The word intelligence has countless definitions; etymologically, intelligent is the present participle of intelligere “to understand, comprehend, come to know”, from assimilated form of inter “between” + legere “choose, pick out, read.” In order to be able to “choose between”, volition is another key component, which is unique to the person involved in the thought process. Another concept related to intelligence that must be addressed and critically questioned is that of optimization through experience, a fundamental element in AI systems. Optimization without a meaningful purpose becomes optimization for the sake of optimization, a directionless process that can lead to dangerous results. It is necessary to establish a clear direction for optimization, whose purpose should be to sustain people and nature, fostering the flourishing of life.

All these elements that constitute intelligence cannot be delegated to an algorithm without seeing the meaning of our own existence vanish. Meaning is given to each person’s life through their own thought process, the essential components of which are those mentioned above. If the beneficiary of the delegation is a corporation, critical thinking undergoes a rapid process of decline, giving corporations broad powers to undermine not only our formal democracies but also the meaning of our own existence.

If we consider that the way in which digital fragments from specific sources are selected and combined is decided by corporations — which have collected and privatized personal data and artistic creations through a veritable digital enclosure — then it becomes clear that promoting critical thinking through AI is highly improbable. On the contrary, it is essential to realize that we are witnessing a rapid decline in our most precious treasure: our mental faculties for critical thinking. As a result, the erosion of human rights and our formal democracies is foreseeable, with possible increases in current authoritarian tendencies, if adequate measures are not taken to preserve and nurture critical thinking.