Reclaiming Freedom While Democracy Decays and AI Surges
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Democratic norms decay as strongmen leaders disable checks on their power; artificial intelligence permeates every sector of societies. Although reflecting different origins and dynamics, these two trends in the first decades of the twenty-first century reflect and escalate social distrust and diminish human capacities. Reclaiming our freedom requires active resistance and actions honouring and deepening our humanity through protest, collaboration, and creativity.
Les normes démocratiques se dégradent à mesure que les dirigeants autoritaires suppriment les contrôles sur leur pouvoir; l’intelligence artificielle imprègne tous les secteurs de la société. Bien qu’elles reflètent des origines et des dynamiques différentes, ces deux tendances observées au cours des premières décennies du XXIe siècle reflètent et exacerbent la méfiance sociale et réduisent les capacités humaines. Pour reconquérir notre liberté, nous devons mener une résistance active et des actions qui honorent et approfondissent notre humanité par la protestation, la collaboration et la créativité.
* 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University. Thanks to Jonathan Salem Baskin, Justin Curl, Mika Forman-Yossifov, Christina Fitzgerald, Shira Gur Arieh, Elizabeth Guo, Tiffany Jing, Maroussia Levesque, Clara Nguyen, Ajayan Williamson, Justice Rosalie Abella, Mitch Resnick, Deb Roy, Shriya Srikanth, Jonathan Zittrain, Mira Singer, and Joe Singer for suggestions, references, and insights. Thanks also to Tina Piper, René Provost, Nandini Ramanujam, Noah Weisbord, and other members of the McGill University Faculty of Law community, as well as Janice Stein, Bruce Schneier, Ayelet Shachar, and other members of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy community at the University of Toronto. This paper was presented as the René Cassin Lecture at the McGill University Faculty of Law on 29 October 2025, and as the Cadario Visiting Lecture at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, on 15 October 2025.
