The Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence: Energy, Human Dignity, and Social Contract Theory

Abstract

This article investigates the political economy of artificial intelligence by examining the relationships among technological development, energy availability, and financial dynamics. Drawing on social contract theory, it considers how these transformations may affect human dignity, social cooperation, and the institutional distribution of opportunities, resources, and responsibilities, while distinguishing observable consequences from hypotheses that require empirical verification. The analysis argues that energy constraints, computing capacity, financial expectations, and the displacement of professional and managerial work should be assessed within an integrated framework that neither attributes autonomous agency to AI systems nor regards their social effects as technologically predetermined. On this basis, the article proposes a governance framework that combines technical oversight, labor protection, redistributive measures, and international cooperation. The adequacy of this framework should be evaluated in terms of measurable effects on employment, wages, productivity, public finances, and the distribution of the benefits of innovation. At a time when the accelerated deployment of artificial intelligence is concentrating technological and financial power, increasing pressure on energy systems, and exposing labor markets and democratic institutions to disruptive change, the article argues that the central issue is no longer whether AI will transform society, but who will govern that transformation, bear its costs, and appropriate its benefits; without effective public oversight and distributive safeguards, technological progress risks deepening inequality, weakening social cohesion, and undermining the material foundations of human dignity.