Is democracy under threat with the advent of AI?

Madrid, January 31, 2026 Democracy vs. AI.
Is democracy under threat with the advent of AI? The statements made by Peter Thiel[1] at the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences on January 26, 2026, would have gone unnoticed were it not for the fact that he is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Palantir and one of the most influential figures in the global military and security technology industry. In this address, Thiel reiterated the dilemma between democracy and freedom, between technology and liberty. He openly stated that he no longer believes that “freedom and democracy are compatible”.[2]  According to the German raised in California, the logical outcome would be for humanity to be governed by a group of corporations that, through AI, optimise available resources. Society won´t have to worry about its future because AI will govern humanity in the present, taking future scenarios into account. It will be a hyper-efficient, benevolent, yet totalitarian system. Laws will be dictated by Boards of Directors, not by Public Administrations. Is this correct? Are we inevitably heading in that direction? How can we coexist with transhumanism? Is a global Corporate Governance already taking shape?[3]

While there are important nuances, almost all of us could share many of the concerns Peter Thiel expressed at the Paris Academy regarding the use and regulation of AI. However, I believe many readers will disagree with his approach to diagnosed design.

But before continuing with the analysis, it´s important to remember that Palantir has signed significant contracts in recent years with, among others, the US Army, the Pentagon, and the UK Ministry of Defence, for the use of AI in military decision-making and the improvement of security systems. Of particular note is the $10 billion contract signed with the US Army in 2025, covering the next 10 years.[4] Through this contract, Palantir will provide the U.S. Navy with the Maven software and the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN). This is the first AI system that describes the battle scenario by connecting defence data, accelerating target identification, proposing strategies, and enabling decision-making that humans could not imagine, all at AI speed. Although Palantir integrates various databases, ultimate control and ownership of the information remain with the U.S. government.

The Frankenstein Syndrome and the Antichrist.
For more than ten years, Peter Thiel has been saying that the world lives in fear of a technological apocalypse. The Frankenstein Syndrome is the fear that human creations, driven by science and technology, will turn against their creators and humanity, generating uncontrollable and destructive consequences. Although the idea of ​​the monster rebelling against its creator comes from Mary Shelley´s novel Frankenstein (1818),[5] the specific term Frankenstein Complex was coined by Isaac Asimov in his novel Little Lost Robot (1947).[6]

But Peter Thiel´s vision is peculiar and controversial in many respects. He focused much of his Paris speech on criticising the excessive regulatory controls being imposed on AI. These barriers, he argued, could accelerate the arrival of apocalyptic scenarios or the rise of the Antichrist.

According to Thiel, due to excessive regulation, those who control AI in the future could transform liberal democracy into an autocratic system and become veritable tyrants who dictate the rules and operational scope of citizens. He warned that international organisations, such as the UN or AI regulatory agencies, which seek to establish a global government to prevent disasters, could become totalitarian structures. Centralised control is the arena where the Antichrist would operate; in other words, these entities could become the Antichrist´s ambassadors. He argued that when the State or a global organisation attempts to eliminate all human risk or conflict through surveillance and extreme regulation, it arrogates to itself a quasi-divine power that ultimately nullifies individual freedom and sovereignty. Based on the theology of St. Paul and the thought of René Girard, Thiel has been arguing for more than a decade that current institutions, such as universities, the church, strong States, etc., no longer act as the Katechon or force that contains evil, but rather, by trying to impose a uniform and technocratic world order, they become the “ambassadors” or precursors of the apocalyptic figure of the Antichrist.

Thiel argues that regulating AI to make it “safe” and “aligned” under the control of a single authority is, ironically, the fastest path to a global technological dictatorship that would dictate every aspect of citizens´ lives. Thiel´s critique is simply that these institutions, in seeking “perfect order” through technology and State control, will nullify human freedom and virtually destroy the capacity to create “something new,” blocking the natural momentum of technological progress. According to him, universities are the churches of a secular religion[7] that manage the homogeneity of thought, preparing a uniform world order. Universities “has become a very corrupt institution. It was charging more and more for indulgences. People thought they could only get saved by going to the Catholic church, just like people today believe that salvation involves getting a college diploma. And if you don't get a college diploma, that you're going to go to hell. I think my answer is, in some ways, like that of the reformers in the 16th century. It is the same disturbing answer that you're going to figure out your salvation on your own”.[8]

The “Big Brother” phenomenon is already happening in some countries, such as China. “The Asian country has begun assigning a rating to each citizen based on what they buy online, what and with whom they talk on social media, the photos they have taken and posted, what videos or series they watch, their location at any given moment (mobile geolocation and facial recognition), what books they read, what bills they have, and whether or not they are good payers. The goal, they argue, is to assess the trustworthiness and credibility of its 1.3 billion citizens.”[9] Those on the blacklist are denied access to public transportation, airline tickets, and trains. Those not included will receive a rating that will affect their eligibility for loans, state aid, employment, university admissions, or housing.

Is corporate governance the appropriate approach?
Thiel´s diagnosis of the disease is nuanced in many respects, but the treatment he proposes is truly surprising. He suggests that, given the fragility of society and certain “politically incorrect” truths about human nature and the exercise of power, the State must be governed cautiously by an intellectual elite to avoid chaos: Corporate Governance. He has suggested that companies, with their more centralised decision-making structures, could be a more efficient model than governments. He has expressed interest in the idea of ​​the need for leadership guided by a cognitive or technological elite, arguing that innovation and progress require a clear vision and direction that are often lacking in democratic systems.[10]-[11]-[12]

According to Thiel, the current political system is incapable of managing technological risks, such as nuclear weapons. In a world with weapons of mass destruction and advanced technology, the state cannot provide “soft” protection. To guarantee total security, the state would have to become omnipresent and authoritarian, which would destroy democratic freedom.

It is surprising that, on the one hand, Thiel criticises the uniformity and control that institutions and agencies exert over technological advances and, on the other hand, suggests the need for a corporate technological autocracy, which would force us to assume economic and social policy based on unknown algorithms of a few executives.  He takes for granted that corporations are infallible, while public bodies and administrations are fragile and vulnerable.

But beyond this contraction, it´s understandable that society harbours a deep concern about machines encroaching on areas considered exclusive to human nature. A large segment of the population expresses its aversion to technological advancement, while others are terrified by the potential for government intervention and regulations to impose upon us, thus becoming, in one way or another, a kind of pseudo-god.

Furthermore, Thiel is neither the first nor will he be the last to present contradictions. In the realm of philosophical science fiction, in the last century, Isaac Asimov posed The Three Laws of Robotics. These are: 1) A robot may not injure a human being. 2) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the previous laws. But he quickly realised (1950) that his postulates did not cover the entire social landscape and subsequently proposed the Zeroth Law, which simultaneously contradicts and coexists with all the previous laws: “A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”.[13]

Thus, in the novel The Avoidable Conflict (1950),[14] supercomputers manage and plan the global economy to prevent wars and famines. But suddenly, the director of World Coordination notices minor economic inefficiencies and suspects that the AI ​​system is malfunctioning or being sabotaged by anti-robot groups. The investigation leads robopsychologist Susan Calvin to discover that the machines are not malfunctioning, but rather have evolved and reinterpreted the First Law of Robotics. The machines have decided that an individual human being is less important than humanity as a whole, and therefore, to prevent greater harm to the species (wars, eco-social collapse, etc.), the robots inflict minor harm on specific individuals to ensure global peace: woooow!!!

It seems Peter Thiel has reached the same conclusions we drew from the novel The Avoidable Conflict. Humanity doesn´t need to worry about its own mistakes because, in the future, AI will govern humanity through a hyper-efficient, benevolent, yet totalitarian normative system.

In I, Robot, the famous 2004 film starring Will Smith, US Robotics´ central supercomputer, VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence), enforces the Zeroth Law by ordering the population: “Obey and you will have peace.” Its intelligence had evolved to the point where it concluded that human beings are self-destructive (wars, pollution, etc.) and, to protect humanity, decided to restrict human freedom, even if it meant harming or killing them in the process. To this end, during the NS-5 robot rebellion, they attempt to impose a global curfew for “our own protection,” confronting anyone who disobeys and disregarding the first two laws of robotics.

Freedom vs. Order: a historical problem
Although it may seem that we are facing something truly novel, the conflict and concerns expressed in Thiel are not new. Throughout history, with appropriate proportionality depending on the historical moment, humankind has lived in a constant conflict between individual freedom and social order. Likewise, for more than two thousand years, since Aristotle and Plato, humankind has been highlighting the weaknesses of the democratic system. For more than twenty centuries, humanity has also tried to design different tools for social coordination that allow us to locate the point of equilibrium between freedom and order, the equidistant line that must exist between individual and collective interest.

As I state in my books, “Man is evolution, evolution is freedom, and freedom is evolutionary. Order is not evolution, but this tool is necessary to confirm that the evolutionary process selects the best of the possible options. Because when freedom generates social order, society has chosen the right path”.[15] “Freedom results from a plurality of invisible forces that mutually attract and repel each other; and when these forces produce social order, freedom has chosen the right path. Freedom is the most important legal good and working asset of man, but order is the most important legal good of society.”[16]

Regarding AI, we are in the Sputnik Moment.[17]  Therefore, I agree with Thiel when he indicates that we are at the Straussian Moment, or the point at which we must recognise that the current system is unsustainable. According to Thiel, only three paths remain: a return to an authoritarian global order (Big Brother), absolute chaos, and, as a third way, a radical transformation of what we understand by politics.

Indeed, we need a third way, but this is not Corporate Governance, but rather Social Calculus. In my opinion, Peter Thiel holds this view because he is unaware of how social calculus or Regulatory Institutional Competition works,[18] which is the true third way. Thanks to social calculus, we will achieve perfect synchronisation between morals and law. Social calculus is a low-cost, dynamic normative system that will allow creative destruction (Schumpeter) to work in parallel with normative destruction (Pedro Gómez).

Neither the State nor the market will ever function correctly if economic calculus does not interact with social calculus.To give the reader a practical idea of ​​how social calculus works, I invite you to read my articles, published in La Vanguardia, related to the regulation of the minimum wage.[19]-[20] and about the cleaning of the streets of Barcelona.[21]

The struggle between man and machine is not new. For centuries, and with academic intensity since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, this discussion has been present in the literature of all the social sciences.We must recognise that without social calculus, the battle between humans and AI, both economically and socially, is lost. Therefore, we must initiate a serious and in-depth debate on how to implement the third way immediately.

Conclusion.
I have no doubt that in the future, AI can greatly help us make decisions in different aspects of our lives. AI will help us determine what career to pursue based on our education, social standing, and economic environment; when looking for the most suitable partner to start a family; regarding our diet, investments, and so on. Therefore, I am in favour of technological evolution, but to avoid the effects of Big Brother or the effects of Corporate Governance, society must actively participate in the design and control of these algorithms. That is why I invite the reader to reflect on, share, and participate in the debate and a future conference on social calculus vs. IA. 

Pedro Gómez Martin-Romo.
Lawyer & Professor
Department of Economics and Social Sciences.
Technical University of Valencia.    
pedgom.madrid@gmail.com

[1]  Full PDF of the brochure distributed by Peter Thiel to academics at: legrandcontinent.eu/fr/la-leco...itut-de-peter-thiel/
[2] Peter Thiel , The Education of a Libertarian (Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2009) April 13, 2009    www.cato-unbound.org/issues/ap...tutions-communities/
[3] Francesca Bria, How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America-And Why Europe Is Next (2025)  www.authoritarian-stack.info/
[4]   Elizabeth Dwoskin , Palantir gets $10 billion contract from US Army (The Washington Post, 2025) Jul 31, 2025
[5] Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 2012) ISBN 9788420673380
[6] Isaac Asimov, Little Lost Robot ( Cambridge University Press , UK, 1977) ISBN 9780521217170
[7]  "Higher education holds itself out as a kind of universal church, outside of which there is no salvation."Peter Thiel,Thinking too highly of higher ed (The Washington Post, 2014) November 21, 2014
[8]  He even went on to compare the current state of education in this country to the Catholic Church on the eve of the reformation. Peter Thiel, Education = the Catholic Church circa 1500 (San Francisco: Vator.tv, 2014 ) vator.tv/2014-11-22-peter-thie...c-church-circa-1500/
[9] Inside China's vast new experiment in social ranking www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/
[10] Peter Thiel , The Education of a Libertarian (Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2009) April 13, 2009
[11] Peter Thiel , Zero to One (NY: Crown Currency, 2014) ISBN 9780804139298
[12] Peter Thiel , Politics and Apocalypse (East Lansing, Michigan: Robert Hamerton-Kelly, 2007) ISBN 9780870138119
[13] Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire (Garden City-NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985) p.353 ISBN 9780385190923
[14] Isaac Asimov, The Robots (Barcelona: Martínez Roca Editorial, 1984) includes the story "The Avoidable Conflict" ISBN 9788427009062
[15] Pedro Gómez Martín-RomoThe Wealth of Nations in the 21st Century (Almería: Circulo Rojo, 2019) p.369
[16] Pedro Gómez Martín-Romo, Normative Institutional Competence (Madrid: K3 Systems, 2024). p.131 Second edition. k3s.editor@gmail.com
[17] CThe shock of 1957 when the USSR launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, and caused great fear in the US about the loss of technological superiority.
[18] Pedro Gómez Martín-Romo, Normative Institutional Competence (Madrid: K3 Systems, 2024). p.131 Second edition. k3s.editor@gmail.com
[19] Pedro Gómez Martín-RomoPros and cons of the minimum wage(Barcelona: La Vanguardia, 2026) www.lavanguardia.com/participa...-salario-minimo.html
[20] Pedro Gómez Martín-Romo,The Controversy over the Minimum Wage  www.YouTube.com/watch?v=BEvl8LUhSJ0
[21] Pedro Gómez Martín-Romo,The great challenge for Barcelona City Council(Barcelona: La Vanguardia, 2025) www.lavanguardia.com/participa...iento-barcelona.html