Nothing human can escape the near future: the defense of human rights in the era of artificial intelligence

Abstract

Capitalism, through the extensive liberation of flows of desire inherent to its operation, has disrupted cultures, traditions, subjectivities, and systems of values—among them humanism, the philosophical and ideological foundation of human rights. The unchecked development of artificial intelligence further threatens to intensify this dynamic. The purpose of this article is to explore the search for a new foundation for human rights in an era in which all that is solid has dissolved into air. To this end, I turn to one of the most significant philosophical and political currents of the early twenty-first century: accelerationism. Through a comprehensive analysis of its origins and principles, as well as of key concepts drawn from the poststructuralist philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and from cybernetics, I outline an approach to the critical points around which law must orient itself in order to withstand the crisis that is advancing with increasing speed.