Plato is famous, perhaps notorious, for his idea of the philosopher king. Undergoing decades of physical, mental, and mathematical training, they are the best and sole candidates to rule the city. A new idea inspired by this is that of the robot king. Technology has been increasingly integrated within the political and legal domains. Models are widely used by police departments across the country to assess risk of flight (whether to provide bail) and risk of the defendant committing another crime.

Although technology are not the sole rule makers in any government, perhaps they are not that far away. Today, more than any other point in the course of human civilization, we are all influenced by the technology we use. We read the news on our phones, communicate with others via messaging technology, and even learn and work online. The pandemic only accelerated these changes.

Thus, our political leaders are in no doubt influenced by the technology which they use on a day to day basis as well as the culture surrounding it. We are probably then grossly underestimating the extent to which our opinions and political values (not to say views) are subtly (or not) influenced by technology.

This is still far away from robot kings, but it is a starting step. If we are to say that robots in rule, I do not see the need for robots to be explicitly in rule. For example, some might say that whoever is president of the United States is inconsequential, as those who have the real power and influence are not in that single position. It may then be concluded that rulership is not only explicit. There is an even stronger form of government which is implicit and hidden, which although not public roles, play an equally significant part in the governmental process.

The robot kings perhaps already exist in a very crude, bare-bones form. If one recalls large language models such as Gemini or ChatGPT, they provide all sorts of commentary and resources. Although they are trained by humans, and thus not completely external or alien from ourselves, they produce outputs which are grounded in math. The more far-reaching impact these technologies have, the more our thinking will be influenced and mechanicalized. Some schools in the UK have already introduced AI tutors to educate students, and although this may seem harmless at first, if implemented on a large scale, teaching would be rendered human-less. It may thus be anticipated that those educated by robots lack the same dispositions and attitudes which would have been fostered within a human-ran classroom.

Part of why I put this in vague terms is because I am still uncertain as to what extent our politics will be influenced by technology. Certainly the spread of misinformation has become easier than ever with deepfakes and ability to produce speech mimicking any human being on earth. But, that is just the surface level. One what should really be worried about is that educational, more long-term aspect, as that is formative to the new generation.

One part of technology that has certainly influenced the very fabric and core of society (and perhaps reality) is social media. Its ability to warp reality for any generation (although the younger generation, especially female teenagers are more susceptible) is striking. Fueled by a constant anxiety of missing out and imposter syndrome, people cultivate fake and curated profiles of themselves online. They equate that with their identity, value, and reality. They see not the world through their own eyes, but through the eyes of others (and the judgements of others).

Certainly this technology is exclusively designed and created by humans, but after the point of creation, it takes on a life of its own. It doesn’t matter if robots can think, move, possess physical bodies, or talk to us. Perhaps technology is already influencing our politics and worldviews, to the point that we are being governed by the very products we created. This governance, however, is invisible, the most powerful political form.