The end of human agency

Abstract

We often imagine AI risk as a sudden takeover in the future, but what if we are already experiencing gradual disempowerment without even noticing? This film, based on the paper ‘Gradual disempowerment: systemic existential risks from incremental AI development’, explores how growing reliance on AI could erode human influence long before anything dramatic happens: automation quietly removing humans from the economic feedback loops that give us leverage, AI allowing ideas to spread through culture without needing human participation, and states becoming less accountable as AI replaces labour, taxation, and enforcement. None of these shifts require malicious intent, misaligned AI, or a dramatic takeover.