Bare Life in the Technopoly: The Potential for Democracy Under Surveillance Capitalism in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Through a critical biopolitical and surveillance capitalist framework, artificial intelligence can be grounded as a technology manifesting within systems of power and influencing human life as an extension of these powers. I will develop the argument that these systems of power, which fundamentally reduce the individual to that of bare life, threaten the workings of a democratic society. By understanding the harms of artificial intelligence as it becomes increasingly integrated into societal structures, I propose a revival of democracy through an emphasis on the necessity of shared physical space outside of the digital realm.