The interconnection between digital and cultural revolutions: how artificial intelligence is challenging humankind

Abstract

If Karl Marx had lived during the 21st Century, he would have pointed to the new technologies and the digital revolution as the “spectrum that wanders through the world” (and no longer just Europe). The 21st century is undergoing radical changes in many ways, including the proliferation of technological means now used for any task, action or work. Unfortunately, this change cannot and must not be separated from the context in which it is embedded: a world where democratic principles, by most considered as ‘the best functioning form of government’, are being challenged by the development of an increasingly elitist and unjust policy-making, which favour a small part of the population at the expense of others considered as more vulnerable. This research aims to investigate the flaws of a system, first cultural and then legislative, regarding the use of many technologies. If it is common to think that digital and cultural revolution cannot be interconnected, nor interdependent, the author aims to prove the opposite in this paper. In two different moments of the research, the author will focus on the one hand, on the gaps in a system of thought that is still proving to be deeply erroneous and, on the other hand, on the attempts made by International Human Rights Law to fill the legislative gaps, far from being able to stem this problem. The author will not think of the technological machine as a problem within itself, but rather within the whole context in which it is inserted. The aim is to prove that the very first change must be cultural and political, given the almost silent threat that technological change brings to certain human rights. Starting with social constructs, ending with laws enacted at national and supranational level, there must be special attention to this inevitable connection between technology and the historical context.