Techno-scientific Socialism vs Techno-solutionism
Techno-solutionism is currently being pushed as the ultimate solution to complex social, political and ecological problems. Regardless of the background and political affiliations of the proponents of techno-solutionism, the assertion that the problems we face are due to the “obvious” failure of democratic institutions. Techno-solutionists propose that the “failed” governments and democratic institutions should be replaced by a system that is exclusively based on technological innovation.
In this view, technology is inherently neutral, efficient and progressive. By reducing societal crises to engineering problems, techno-solutionists believe that automation, algorithms, AI-platforms and data-driven systems should replace messy costly bureaucratic human institutions. Thus, at its heart techno-solutionism is a denial of underlying mechanisms of power, inequality, exploitation and governance. At the same time, techno-solutionism reinforces existing hierarchies. It legitimizes corporate power and influence over public life, while bringing into question democratic governance, which they claim, has failed.
A closer inspection shows that techno-solutionism and models of AI-powered future societies are backed and pushed by a few tech-billionaires who are in the forefront of AI-revolution. The deployment of impactful AI models in recent years, the glaring absence of government insight and oversight, the toothless or absent laws and rudimentary regulations have all created an eco-system of absolute power where tech-billionaires have given an unprecedented opportunity to imagine a world entirely driven by a new kind of capitalist class that regards the democratic systems as a “failure” that can only be corrected by AI-powered governance.
This is of course not just wishful thinking: tech-billionaires behind the current AI-revolution have funded both philosophers (Yarvin) and central US government officials (J. D. Vance) for years and exerted pressure on governments to bypass regulations. For instance, more recently, major AI actors and lobby groups managed to delay the implementation of EU AI Act under the guise of “competitiveness”. And although never stated explicitly, the idea amounts to bypassing existing(very little), influence future regulations, and to amass the necessary amount of personal and other data in order to have the upperhand in the race towards AI dominance be it income generating consumer products or superintelligent machines that are already being compared to nuclear weapons. One could argue that exerting influence on governments and/or attempting to shape the laws and regulations in order to act freely, have always been a part of capitalist attempts to shape the environment it lives in. Many even credit capitalism for a certain degree of emancipation it offered by creating an economic system that departed from feudal structures. Proponents of capitalism have always claimed that there is something inherently human and natural about capitalism, and that opposing alternatives will remove incentives for competition and innovation, while undermining individual freedom and limiting accountability.
Socialism, as the main opposing ideology to capitalism, is viewed by capitalism as a form of governance that leads to a centralized, authoritarian state. It is also claimed that the idea of socialism or scientific socialism as a “historical necessity” legitimizes political repression, suppresses pluralism and concentrates power in the hands of “a self-appointed vanguard”. The empirical failures of 20th century socialist state experiments are used to dismiss the idea in its entirety and a proof of total absence of viable alternatives to capitalism. At the same time, there is no historical or scientific evidence of the necessity for a future that is solely organized around profit extraction. The massive failures of capitalism are often omitted from the societal discourse as a “necessary evil”.
There are also massive differences between the traditional capitalist driven industrialization and the current capitalist driven AI-revolution: Traditional capitalism offered a certain degree of emancipation by treating individuals as “free agents”. The ideology of AI-capitalists of today is diametrically different in that instead of just monetizing the physical space, time, and consumer goods in an otherwise free society, they aim at monetizing the “free agents’ minds” in ways that have never before been possible. So on one hand we have a system that claims to be the only alternative to a free and open society where individuals are emancipated. And on the other hand, we have the same system that is creating the technological infrastructure that enables it to monetize every movement, desire and thought of the “emancipated” individuals.
Should we all have to accept living in technologically advanced societies of ultimate control where all aspects of human life, even humans themselves are turned into commodities? And what does it mean to be human in future societies that, if realized, will be run by the likes of tech-billionaires who openly oppose democracy, claiming it to be a dysfunctioning relic of the past systems?
Is a post-capitalist, technologically advanced future possible?
We think that despite the current projected narratives of “inevitability of AI-driven capitalism”, it is still possible to imagine a society with shared stewardship of automated infrastructures and other alternatives grounded in cooperative robotics and data commons. Robots and AI systems can be collectively-owned productive forces, they can be managed through democratic institutions rather than corporate monopolies or state technocracies. We can imagine a world where data, the most valuable commodity of today, becomes a public good governed by transparent, participatory mechanisms, ensuring that algorithmic systems reflect communal values and priorities rather than commercial interests. We can live in societies where technological power is decoupled from domination and redirected towards betterment of human life. Automation and AI-powered technologies do not have to become a tool for displacement of workers into precarity. Communities can use cooperative robotics to redistribute labor and to expand time for education, culture and political engagement. Technology and power do not have to be concentrated in the hands of a few. Instead it can be redirected toward radically more equitable forms of life centered on collective flourishing.
Historically, scientific socialism was proposed as a deterministic continuation of capitalist societies. This ideology emerged as a synthesis of European philosophy, political economy and revolutionary ideas. It rejected utopian schemes in favor of a theory of history in which material forces, economic structures, and collective struggle determine the evolution of society. Instead of viewing socialism as a moral aspiration or a utopian dream, it considers it a historically grounded and an empirically analyzable process, hence a scientifically examinable and provable process. The idea is that the development of productive forces and the contradictions of capitalism make the transition to socialism a predictable necessity. In other words, socialism arises as a historical/natural necessity born from self-emancipation of the working class as it confronts capitalist exploitation.
Today, there are even more reasons to return to these ideas. The current AI-revolution is projected to cause massive layoffs which no governments have taken into account. Some tech-billionaires (E. Musk etc) plan to deploy robots that will render work and the working class obsolete. Others (S. Altman) discuss a future based on those who can afford to buy intelligence or not . Yet others (L. Ellison). speak about making sure to use the new AI algorithms to “keep people on their best behavior”. And finally, some others (P. Thiel) openly lament democracy as a failure that can only be corrected if the society was organized like a profit-driven company that is run by unquestionable CEOs.
Conclusions:
Above we argued the current development of AI is driven by a few billionaires who fundamentally oppose the nature of democratic societies. On one hand, they view capitalism as the only alternative and on the other hand, they diverge from the usual capitalist coexistence within a reasonably free society. In many ways, this is a U-turn from capitalism and the emancipation it offered, to what is called Tech-feudalism where we pay rent to tech-firms to live and to participate in a society where all our dreams and desires are monetized by others. But is there a contradiction between advanced technologies and emancipation? Is it impossible to live in a technologically advanced world governed by ourselves?
If scientific socialism is truly a historical necessity, we could imagine a future where techno-scientific socialism offers a radical alternative to technosolutionism. Technology alone will not resolve social crises while leaving existing power structures intact. Innovation has never been a neutral force. The revolutionary AI-powered technologies do not have to become commodities controlled by private actors. Technological systems (AI, robotics, automation, data infrastructures) can be treated as collective productive forces that are democratically governed. It is only techno-scientific socialism that can distribute the benefits of advanced technologies fairly as their development will be guided by public needs rather than profit imperatives, and their risks mitigated through collective oversight rather than corporate self-regulation, as it is today. In a modern world, technology must become a tool for dismantling exploitation, reducing drudgery, expanding human capacities, and enabling new forms of cooperative life, rather than a mechanism for deepening inequality or entrenching technocratic authority.