Artificial Intelligence and Social Change—A Challenge for Democratic Relations of Power and Domination

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key technology of the twenty-first century that has and will continue to have a far-reaching impact on all areas of society and people’s lives. Technical and technological revolutions always have had the potential to lead to social upheaval and to substantially transform power relations and power structures in a society. When considering the relationship between humans, society and AI, the debate often oscillates between naive technological euphoria on the one hand and fatalistic or dystopian fantasies of extinction on the other, but the power issues associated with the development and application of AI usually remain strangely underexposed and undertheorized. Therefore, this article looks at the influence of AI on social power relations and power structures and asks how the use of artificial intelligence is changing the understanding of power and power relations in economy, politics and society and what consequences this has for democracy. It is shown that AI in itself and per se does not have an equalizing, levelling or democratizing effect. Rather, it tends to potentiate, centralize, monopolize and stabilize relations of power and domination, i.e. to expand the power and authority of already powerful actors—and thus to perpetuate and exacerbate imbalances and inequalities in society.