AI-generated contradictions for environmental democracy

Abstract The article is a critical-philosophical reflection of some economic–political and technological–political trends triggered by the process of digitalization and enhanced by AI technologies. From the perspective of environmental political philosophy, it points out that the rapid emergence of AI technologies is neither politically nor environmentally neutral. It deepens several contradictions of democratic political and constitutional systems, thereby undermining democratic institutions and processes. This paper understands contemporary constitutional democracies as normative systems of limits aimed at limiting the possibility of abuse of power. However, the economic and political reality of nominally democratic states differs in many ways from normative constitutional documents. Even constitutionally democratic states are thus unable to adequately respond to environmental devastation caused by technological and economic power. Based on the critique of this techno-political constellation, the article introduces the concept of environmental democracy as a normative theory, which seeks to reconcile the concept of constitutional democracy with the knowledge of Earth System Science. From this perspective, the paper critically assesses some phenomena associated with digitalization and the development of AI technologies, which threaten the existing constitutional democracies and practically make their socio-environmental transformation impossible. The concept of environmental democracy assumes the possibility of extending equal access to public functions to equal access to basic life resources as prerequisites of survival for all in the New Climate Regime. It relies on several UN documents and declarations. The article points out that the AI revolution is occurring simultaneously with an unprecedented disruption of the planetary system that is changing the environmental preconditions for the existence of organized human society to an extent that threatens both the survival of existing political systems and civil and human rights, and brings a new perspective on how AI technologies undermine democratic institutions and processes of socio-environmental transformation.