How AI fuels democratic erosion and environmental collapse

A new philosophical study by Richard Sťahel from the Institute of Philosophy at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, warns that artificial intelligence may not be the liberating force it is often portrayed to be. Instead, it poses a growing threat to democratic institutions, civil liberties, and the planet's ecological stability.

Published in AI & Society, the study "AI-Generated Contradictions for Environmental Democracy" offers a sobering critique of how the AI boom intensifies political and environmental contradictions at the very heart of modern constitutional democracies.

The author argues that the rise of digital technologies and AI represents not just a technological revolution but a political and ecological turning point, one that challenges humanity's ability to maintain democratic governance while surviving within the limits of the Earth's ecosystems. His central thesis is that AI is neither politically nor environmentally neutral. Instead, it widens global inequalities, accelerates resource depletion, and undermines the very democratic systems that might otherwise regulate its excesses.

AI and the democratic deficit: Technology without accountability

The study analyses how constitutional democracies were originally designed as systems of self-limitation, meant to prevent the concentration of power in any single institution or group. These limitations, enshrined in constitutional law, human rights, and civic equality, were established to ensure that political decisions reflected the will of citizens and respected collective boundaries. Yet, according to Sťahel, the global digital economy driven by AI has eroded these democratic safeguards.

Most AI technologies are developed and controlled by private corporations, not democratic institutions. These corporations wield immense power over data, communication, and public opinion without being subject to electoral or legal accountability. Their algorithms now determine what people see, think, and believe. The author warns that these dynamics have turned information itself into a mechanism of control, allowing technology giants to influence elections, public policies, and even cultural values.

AI-enabled surveillance, predictive analytics, and social media manipulation have become new tools of soft power. Governments increasingly depend on these corporate technologies, deepening their dependency on non-democratic entities. Sťahel describes this relationship as a modern form of "technofeudalism", a system in which states effectively pay "cloud rent" to corporations that control digital platforms and infrastructure. In this hierarchy, nations are no longer sovereign but data colonies, subordinate to the interests of transnational technology companies.

This imbalance threatens the principle of people's sovereignty that lies at the foundation of democracy. The very institutions meant to represent citizens are losing autonomy, while the flow of information and decision-making power is being privatized. The result is a deepening democratic deficit, where public oversight and citizen participation are replaced by algorithmic governance and corporate dominance.

AI's environmental contradiction: A technology that accelerates crisis

Beyond political risks, the study argues that AI technologies are environmentally destructive in ways that contradict their supposed role as tools for sustainability. While AI is frequently promoted as an ally in fighting climate change, its physical infrastructure tells a different story. Data centers, high-performance computing clusters, and energy-hungry hardware require massive amounts of electricity, rare-earth minerals, and water.

The study points out that AI's material footprint, energy consumption, electronic waste, and resource extraction, intensifies the same planetary crises it claims to solve. The environmental costs of building and maintaining AI systems exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions and strain ecosystems already on the brink. Paradoxically, AI's ability to model the climate system with extraordinary precision only exposes the scale of its own environmental impact.

From the standpoint of environmental political philosophy, the paper frames this as a moral contradiction: a technology that can forecast environmental collapse yet contributes directly to it. Sťahel emphasizes that constitutional democracies have proven incapable of restraining the economic and technological forces driving such unsustainable growth. Even as states pledge to meet global climate goals, they invest billions in digitalization projects that expand industrial energy demand and widen the ecological footprint of the AI economy.

This technological acceleration also fuels geopolitical tensions. The race for AI supremacy among major powers has turned into a global struggle for resources, reinforcing patterns of eco-imperialism where wealthy nations extract raw materials from the Global South to sustain their digital economies. Meanwhile, developing countries face rising costs of digital dependence and environmental degradation, deepening global inequalities.

Environmental democracy: Rebuilding governance for the planetary age

To counter these converging crises, the research proposes a new framework of environmental democracy, a political model that integrates ecological responsibility into the core of democratic governance. Environmental democracy, as he defines it, extends the principle of equality beyond civic rights to include equal access to essential life resources, clean air, water, food, and climate-resilient shelter.

Inspired by Earth System Science and international environmental law, Sťahel argues that the survival of democratic societies now depends on recognizing the finite boundaries of the planet. This means that the right to life must encompass the right to a habitable environment. Under environmental democracy, political and economic decisions would be made not under the imperative of profit or growth, but under the imperative of sustainability, the need to preserve the Earth's habitability for all.

In this model, states must act to guarantee citizens' access to life-sustaining resources, recognizing these as preconditions for all other human and civil rights. This shift would require rewriting national constitutions to enshrine environmental rights as fundamental. It also demands a reorientation of global governance, where institutions limit consumption and pollution through collectively defined self-limitation, a principle echoing the democratic restraint envisioned by classical constitutionalism but expanded to include ecological boundaries.

AI technologies, the author stresses, must be brought under democratic control to ensure that they serve sustainability rather than corporate profit. Without regulation, he warns, AI will continue to divert resources away from climate adaptation and social equity, undermining both environmental and democratic resilience. The future of democracy, in his view, depends on whether societies can reclaim technological power from private interests and reorient it toward the public good.