From Artificial Intelligence to the Human Transition
Why this series became something much bigger than I originally imagined
Published: 11 July 2026
Editor’s Note: This essay marks the conclusion of AI, Democracy, and the Future of Human Society series and introduces the next stage of this continuing conversation.
When I began writing AI, Democracy, and the Future of Human Society, I believed I was writing about artificial intelligence. As it turned out, I wasn’t. Artificial intelligence was simply where the journey began. Like many people, I initially viewed AI as one of the defining technological revolutions of our time. My intention was to explore what it might mean for work, democracy and society, and how governments might respond to the opportunities and risks it presented. But something unexpected happened as the series progressed. The more I researched the subject, the more I realised that artificial intelligence was not the central story.
It was revealing a much larger one.
AI was exposing questions that reached well beyond technology itself. Questions about how societies adapt to profound change. Questions about whether our institutions are prepared for transformations that unfold more rapidly than ever before. Questions about how democratic governments can remain effective when the pace of change increasingly outstrips the pace of policy-making.
Gradually, my focus shifted. The question was no longer simply how governments should respond to artificial intelligence. The question became whether democratic societies are prepared for an age of accelerating transformation. Artificial intelligence is certainly part of that transformation.
But it is not the whole story.
Around us we can see multiple forces reshaping our societies at the same time. Technological innovation, demographic change, shifting patterns of work, geopolitical uncertainty, climate adaptation and rapid scientific advances are all placing new demands on institutions that were largely designed for a different era.
Viewed together, these developments point to a broader challenge. Not simply managing new technologies. Managing transition itself.
It was at that point that I realised this series had grown beyond its original purpose. What began as an exploration of AI had become an exploration of democratic adaptation. That change in direction ultimately led me to write Governing the Human Transition: Building Democratic Resilience in an Era of Accelerating Transformation. (The book is available from Amazon by the end of this month)
The book brings together the ideas that gradually emerged throughout this series into a broader discussion about how democratic societies can prepare for long-term change while preserving the values that matter most.
Writing it also changed my own perspective. I no longer see artificial intelligence as the defining issue of our time. I see it as the first major test of something much larger. How well can democratic societies adapt to profound and accelerating transformation?
That question will not disappear once the current debate about AI settles. If anything, it is likely to become even more important.
For that reason, this series has reached its natural conclusion. Not because the conversation has ended. But because it has become much broader than I ever anticipated. Over the coming week I will begin publishing a new weekly series called The Human Transition Papers. Rather than focusing solely on artificial intelligence, these essays will explore the wider challenges of democratic governance in an age of accelerating transformation. Some will examine long-term trends. Others will reflect on contemporary events. All will return to a central question:
How can democratic societies prepare for profound change while preserving the values that define them?
At the same time, I have also begun research on a new long-term project exploring questions of global justice, international governance and the future of democratic cooperation. As that research develops, many of its ideas will first appear in The Human Transition Papers before eventually becoming part of a larger body of work.
Finally, I would like to extend an invitation.
One of the most rewarding aspects of AI, Democracy, and the Future of Human Society has been the thoughtful engagement of readers. Many of your comments challenged my assumptions, introduced new perspectives and prompted me to explore questions that I might otherwise have overlooked. The series is stronger because of those conversations.
I hope that spirit of engagement will continue.
The Human Transition is far too important—and far too complex—to be explored from a single perspective. If these papers stimulate questions, alternative viewpoints or constructive criticism, I encourage you to join the conversation. Thoughtful disagreement is often as valuable as agreement, and genuine dialogue has a way of sharpening ideas in ways that solitary writing cannot.
The Human Transition Papers are therefore intended not simply as essays to be read, but as the beginning of an ongoing conversation about one of the defining challenges of our time.
Looking back, I realise that the original title of this series was entirely appropriate. Artificial intelligence was never the destination.
It was the doorway.
Thank you for reading, for commenting, for questioning and, above all, for thinking alongside me.
I look forward to continuing the journey together.
Leon Vermeulen is an independent historian and commentator specialising in European memory, conflict, reconciliation and social cohesion.
Thank you, Leon.
Just to add some (respectful!) points about "AI" from my own perspective (including degree-level studies in computer science, philosophy of language, and linguistics). Computationally, at core it can be reduced to pattern-matching models with language models bolted on. The former models have been around almost since computers themselves, and the latter since Noam Chomsky's transformational syntax algorithms (which I was computerizing / commercializing in the 1980s). Since then, it's become what I liken to the technique used by both the old TV show "want to be a millionaire", and how IBM built a machine last decade to beat the Go world champion in Korea: "Ask the Audience". No shame in that, so long as you don't have the hubris to call it "intelligence".
As such, it's necessarily backwards-looking, manipulable (and extremely manipulated - which hilariously can be done even by individual users), and permanently regressive to the lowest common denominator of past human communications. As to individual effects, the more it's used by humans, the more it destroys innovation and indeed intelligence. I avoid *deliberately* using it (even for coding) because repeated use will simply make one's thinking processes fat, lazy, and stupid. There remains much information (even including old and uncontroversial literature, biographies, etc) that for some reason appears never to have been fed into it as "training data", whose effect is further to mislead users. In other words, it *can* be useful in much the same way Wikipedia is useful, though Wikipedia's manipulations are more obvious.
On the plus side, it's *not* subject to so-called "hallucinations": these are simply the algorithms working, *as designed*, to be "helpful". Also, for myself I have found it useful as "Automated Indexation" i.e. to find sources more easily. I trip on such indexation by default when typing stuff into "search" engines (strictly speaking, traversal of pre-sorted data), which is good for research. But even there, it's limited only to sources that have been fed into it by way of so-called "training data" - (see my comment earlier).
As for impact on human society, economics, etc, which I take to be your focus here, I have no crystal ball. Even after the current Ponzi-scheme-to-end-all-Ponzi-schemes collapses, It'll still be around - though hopefully affordable for (and thus accessible to) only state actors and larger corporations - perhaps even for China's offerings. That will be helpful. I do suspect fields such as education will take a long time to recover. And I do hope it continues to smash intellectual property, which has become nothing more than a rentier economy.
HTH
Well, the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel have a very different idea about the use of AI. Transhumanism. Techno-feudalism. The opposite of Democracy. Elite theory says The People will always lose. It is a matter of which elite will rule.
And outside of direct Democracy, greek style, the spread of democracy has been very good for ruling elites. Less need for direct control. It is what globalism finally achieved. The positive capitalist story. But it has a shadow side, just like Socialism.