AI and the Hyperinflation of Supremacy

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Abstract

Social justice activists and theorists have long contemplated the root causes of oppression. Likewise, they have sought to explain its animating force in contemporary society, primarily to formulate constructive responses. Toward that end, this article examines supremacy on a multi-century time scale both to show how supremacy has evolved into its present instantiation and, as importantly, to set the stage for understanding how supremacy will evolve in the future. Leveraging philosophical inquiry, historical methods, and an anthropology of technology, this article briefly interrogates the possibility of a coming time in which the development of advanced artificial intelligences triggers a runaway inflation of supremacy—a hyperinflation that spins off new forms of oppression at ever-faster rates.