The Unprecedented Disruption: Why the Digital and AI Revolution Defies Historical Determinism

The Unprecedented Disruption: Why the Digital and AI Revolution Defies Historical Determinism

Rahul Ramya

26.02.2026

India

One transcendental general purpose technology with its inception brings new production methods, new economic relations, new political structures, new social order and culture, and new systems of governance. But when this technology with its advancements starts reaching new heights and begins being replaced by newer technology, the orders generated by it start dismantling. This newer technology goes through the same trajectory, producing the same sequence of orders again.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Agriculture revolutionized human existence by enabling permanent settlements, creating new economic structures based on land ownership, establishing hierarchical political systems, developing specialized social roles, and requiring new governance approaches to manage resources. Eventually, its limitations in scaling production and distribution led to its supplementation by mercantile systems.

Mercantile technologies (shipping, banking, accounting) reorganized society around trade networks, created new economic classes of merchants and financiers, established colonial political structures, transformed cultural values around wealth, and developed governance systems based on commercial law. These systems later faced constraints that industrial technologies addressed.

The Industrial Revolution fundamentally altered production through mechanization, created wage-labor economics and capitalism, established nation-states and mass politics, urbanized society, and developed bureaucratic governance. Its limitations in information processing and efficiency eventually led to computerization.

Computer technologies have restructured work around information, created digital economics and globalization, enabled new political movements and structures, transformed culture through connectivity, and developed governance systems balancing privacy, security, and access. These too will eventually reach limitations and be superseded.

Each revolution indeed follows the pattern you described - transformative emergence, establishment of new orders, eventual limitations, and replacement with the next paradigm-shifting technology.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Rise of Digital and AI technologies are again replacing the orders produced by Industrial Technology, with democracy as the dominant political order. As Industrial technology reaches its zenith, it's being replaced by Digital and AI technologies, and all orders including democracy are being dismantled, with new orders taking shape in their place. There is nothing unusual about this. If something is unusual, it's the public's urge to save the last political and economic orders which were based on democracy and equitable competition. In previous eras, the public was non-existent in urging for outgoing political and economic orders as they were more exploitative. But unlike past instances, this time every sign suggests that the new orders which are in the process of emergence are more exploitative than their predecessors, or at least appear so.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

We're witnessing another technological revolution as digital and AI technologies supplant industrial ones. Just as previous technological shifts (agricultural to mercantile to industrial) dismantled existing social, economic, and political structures, our digital revolution is transforming democracy and market capitalism.

What's unique in this transition is widespread public resistance to these changes. Previously, people rarely defended outgoing systems because they were generally oppressive (feudalism, aristocracy, etc.). Today, however, there's significant public desire to preserve democratic institutions and competitive markets that developed during the industrial era.

The concern is that unlike previous transitions that often brought more equitable systems, the emerging digital/AI order appears potentially more exploitative. Digital technologies enable unprecedented surveillance, wealth concentration, and power consolidation. AI may further these trends by automating decision-making, concentrating economic power, and undermining democratic processes through information manipulation.

This perspective suggests we're not experiencing random disruption but rather a predictable pattern of technological determinism. The dismantling of industrial-era democratic institutions isn't an aberration but an expected consequence of technological evolution. The unusual element is our awareness of this pattern and resistance to it, driven by fear that what replaces our current systems may be less equitable, not more.

This framework helps explain both the systematic pressures on democratic institutions worldwide and growing public anxiety about technological change.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Perhaps this time the future will not be shaped in the historically deterministic manner, and more profound conflicts are imminent, leaving the trajectory of society enshrouded in profound uncertainty.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

One reason why consequences of these technologies are more contested and less deterministic is that in previous technological changes, two major supporting components were human resources and natural raw materials, but in the case of digital and AI technologies, the role of human labor has largely diminished and raw material is intellectual property. Moreover, engagement of less human labor is making humans not only surplus but redundant as well.

Secondly, in the case of previous technologies, with their emergence they were at loggerheads with their rulers, though they later became the cheerleaders of the ruling class. But in the present case, these modern technologies of Digital and AI have developed cozy relationships with their rulers through ruling class and the richest class, developing a nexus between technology, political and rich elites.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

This analysis identifies two critical distinctions that make our current technological revolution fundamentally different from previous ones:

First, a fundamental shift in resource dependencies has occurred. Previous technological revolutions (agricultural, industrial, etc.) required substantial human labor and natural resources as inputs. This created an inherent interdependence between technology owners and both workers and resource providers. Digital and AI technologies, however, primarily consume intellectual property rather than physical resources and increasingly minimize human labor requirements. This creates a troubling dynamic where humans become not just economically surplus but potentially redundant to the production system itself. Without the essential role of providing labor, ordinary people lose their primary bargaining leverage in the economic system.

Second, there's been a reversal in the relationship between emerging technologies and existing power structures. Historically, new technologies initially challenged established rulers and power structures before eventually aligning with them. For example, industrial technologies initially threatened aristocratic orders before industrialists themselves became a new ruling class. In contrast, digital and AI technologies have developed in close collaboration with existing power structures from the beginning. This has created an unprecedented alliance between technological innovators, political authorities, and economic elites—a triangle of influence that reinforces each other's power rather than challenging existing hierarchies.

These distinctions help explain why current technological changes may produce more exploitative outcomes than previous transitions. Without the natural checks and balances of labor dependency and initial opposition to power, digital and AI technologies enable existing elites to consolidate control rather than redistributing power through disruptive change. This dynamic makes the future less predictable through traditional historical patterns and potentially more conflict-prone as those excluded from this power alliance seek to assert influence.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

A second challenge to historical determinism arises from the economic model of these new technologies. Unlike previous technological trajectories, these advancements are exceptionally expensive, both in terms of financial investment and specialized knowledge. This creates an exclusionary effect, preventing ordinary individuals from participating in their initial development and adoption. In earlier eras, technologies were generally accessible and did not demand extensive formal education. However, digital and AI technologies require substantial capital and highly specialized technical expertise, rendering them inherently elitist from their inception.

These factors, combined with the potential for human redundancy, are significant sources of conflict, leading to profound uncertainty about the future. The concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few, those already entrenched in political, military, and judicial power structures, further exacerbates this issue. Instead of fostering widespread prosperity, these technologies threaten to marginalize the common person. This trend may necessitate a re-evaluation of Karl Marx's theory of class struggle in contemporary society.