We Don't Need to Elect AI. It's Already Here.

PC: Tara Winstead

We’re leaning on AI more than ever: helping us make decisions, giving us advice at work, even offering emotional support when things get rough. It's everywhere now, quietly shaping what we say, how we write, and how we think. But we have to ask ourselves: When AI grows smarter than all of us combined, will it run our governments too?

Democracy has proven through history to be far from optimal in its execution. Humans, both collectively and individually, carry biases, agendas, and a natural inclination towards short-term thinking. Our self-destructive behaviors and emotional volatility have often undermined our collective progress as a species. 

But for the first time, now we're inventing an intelligence that is not human. An intelligence that never forgets, never sleeps, and can reason more data in a minute than we can in a lifetime. It sees patterns we miss. It stays consistent. It doesn't have a bad day. No campaign donors to please. No ego. No need to win the next election. Why wouldn't we let something like that make the big decisions?

AI could generate the best outcome for everyone: less bias, more fairness, better decisions, and results. But "better" remains a contested concept. 

The beautiful complexity of human civilization emerges from our differences across cultures, nations, and belief systems. We value tradition, community, cultural identity, and religious meaning. An AI, by definition, operates beyond these frameworks, capable of thinking past any single cultural limitation. 

Some countries may choose to hand over big decisions to AI. Others might keep things human-led, using AI as an assistant. Others might reject it entirely or create hybrid systems where AI proposals get voted on by human politicians. Albania naming an AI as a government "minister" shows this future is unfolding right before our eyes. 

One plausible model positions AI as the ultimate advisory system, generating reports distilled from thousands more sources than any human team could process, with reduced bias and enhanced pattern recognition. We would remain at the approval table, but our decisions would be based on AI-processed intelligence rather than traditional research and analysis.

This transformation redefines the human role in governments: Will we elect the AI systems as we used to elect representatives? Will we work for AI governance structures, or will they work for us? 

A future where AI plays a role in politics seems inevitable. So the question isn't whether AI will participate in governance, but how we'll navigate the transition while preserving what we value most about humanity: our diversity, our cultural richness, and our capacity for meaning-making beyond pure optimization.

As we stand at this threshold, we must engage seriously with these questions. The decisions we make about AI in the coming years won't just shape our political systems; they'll define the fundamental relationship between human agency and artificial intelligence for generations to come.

Rafael Guerreiro

CEO @ Sentrion

rafael@sentrion.ai 

+1 (929)663–8841

Lisbon, Portugal

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