The age of artificial intelligence has dawned. It appears that there is no way around it. The technology is no longer in its infancy, has passed the experimental phase, and is becoming more functional, more effective, and better every day. And this is happening in almost all areas, whether communication, health, software development, transportation, education, or research. Multinational companies have put their AI strategies on track, investing billions of dollars and human capacity in these projects, hoping for start-up and competitive advantages, financial gain, and dominance in their industry. IT giants such as Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft are trying to overtake each other in terms of development and have long since declared the race for the most capable and successful algorithms to be their top priority. The hope of gaining is enormous. But are the expectations realistic?
Nobody can even begin to predict how and when everything will change with AI. In some sectors, jobs will be replaced by AI systems. Which professional areas these will be is still speculative : Office assistants, secretaries, call center employees, administration, procurement, banking. What is certain is that AI tools can already perform many automated tasks without human intervention. Whether this will be faster and more efficient cannot be clearly proven; every system requires maintenance, administration, updates, and adaptation. Whether AI can improve our systems is questionable. Perhaps technologically possible, but is this economically desirable? In many respects, this development is a challenge for society as a whole, especially in times of economic crisis, when jobs are being lost and existing industry is being overtaken by technological change.
When Microsoft rolled out its Windows 95 platform with Office programs: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—worldwide and made it a sales hit, office work became easier, but also more complicated, as many more documents and spreadsheets could now be created and saved in a short space of time than before, when people still worked with typewriters and paper files. In fact, the amount of work has more than doubled every year. Everyone knows that with the introduction of electronic mail, there are even more messages to deal with than before. E-mails have greatly increased the workload for everyone. Today, we use software for all administrative tasks. Does this mean that we have less to do than without these tools? Hardly any people can answer this question, because most people don’t even remember how someone managed their work without software from Microsoft & Co.
AI systems can not yet think for themselves. They can perform routine tasks, and they can process, manipulate, and copy enormous amounts of data. The first books created by AI are already on the market; music is also available from the machine. Soon movies and streaming series will be created with AI tools, perhaps without any actors at all, because AI can also create them. Who will still need a film crew that costs a lot of money? But can AI systems really create unique, artistic masterpieces that will still be admired in 50 or 100 years’ time? Or are they just ingenious copying machines that learn quickly and manipulate what they have learned? “Machine learning” is such a super cool AI buzzword: it contains the word “machine,” and machines are no smarter than their creators. At least not yet.
All science fiction readers are familiar with androids, cyborgs, and other half-machine-half-human beings that are sometimes difficult to distinguish from real people and want to take over. Philip K. Dick’s most famous novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” which the author wrote in 1968, revolves around the question of humanity versus artificiality. Have the androids created by humans exceeded the limits of their capabilities? Are they better than humans? Or are they indistinguishable from humans? What distinguishes them from Homo sapiens anyway? The answer is given at the end of the novel: empathy. Robots cannot empathize with others and cannot put themselves in others’ shoes. That’s all well and good, but not very useful in a capitalist value system like the one we have today.
In Arthur C. Clark’s classic science fiction novel “2001 – A Space Odyssey”, also first published in 1968, the supercomputer HAL9000 on the spaceship “Discovery One” takes control at the end by eliminating all the other passengers and gaining the upper hand on its own. The book and especially the film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick are classics. Meanwhile, we have been able to produce supercomputers that perform countless tasks and have made a huge technological leap forward. Nevertheless, we have not managed to fly to Mars or even explore our solar system with manned space flights. Much has remained science fiction and will not be feasible in the near or distant future, despite artificial intelligence. Overcoming the limits of physics is more difficult than automating an office task.
The big question we should all be asking ourselves is, who benefits from the AI boom and who has a vested interest in driving it forward? Yes, we know, the US IT giants, but there are also Chinese, Russian, Indian, and other interests to consider. It’s often about control over individuals and pretextual security aspects. AI can achieve enormous things in surveillance. This is about spying on millions, even billions, of individuals: what they post, where they go, what they buy, what they are interested in, and who they communicate with. It is primarily about commercial interests and targeted marketing, but behind the scenes, surveillance, and control are regularly on the agenda, and not just for police reasons alone. The surveillance industry has enormous financial potential and is a cash cow. Die-hard science fiction fans know that almost all visions of the future have autocratic and authoritarian traits and are anything but libertarian democracies in which human rights are respected.
There is no need to be afraid of AI systems. Even the 18th-century machine strikers thought, they would lose their jobs because the new machines could do everything much faster and in greater quantities. In the long term, they were mistaken. Machines could not replace people, but they did create the need for new job opportunities. Even today, every little secretary requires good computer skills to perform their tasks. And even children can find their way around digital platforms and online games faster than their parents. One thing is certain: our world is becoming more digital, and everyone who wants to find their way in it and be successful must learn how to use this technology. This is the only way that we as humanity can use our technology sensibly in the long term for the well-being of all people and eliminate the risks and dangers that new technologies can cause.
To come back to the previous question: Will we all benefit from the AI boom? You could ask a counter-question. Haven’t we all benefited from digital office programs, microchips, the internet, and social media platforms? Hasn’t technological development in the IT sector created millions of new jobs and thousands of new professions? AI is a powerful tool, for some a little threatening, but there is no doubt that in the long term it will trigger a new technological revolution and dominate our working world, our society, and our progress. Whether everyone will benefit from this depends on how seriously national governments are interested in allowing everyone to participate in the boom and putting the machine at the service of humanity as a whole. Because one thing is clear: every new technology has risks, and researching these and taking timely countermeasures should remain a political and social priority.The age of artificial intelligence has dawned. It appears that there is no way around it. The technology is no longer in its infancy, has passed the experimental phase, and is becoming more functional, more effective, and better every day. And this is happening in almost all areas, whether communication, health, software development, transportation, education, or research. Multinational companies have put their AI strategies on track, investing billions of dollars and human capacity in these projects, hoping for start-up and competitive advantages, financial gain, and dominance in their industry. IT giants such as Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft are trying to overtake each other in terms of development and have long since declared the race for the most capable and successful algorithms to be their top priority. The hope of gaining is enormous. But are the expectations realistic?
Nobody can even begin to predict how and when everything will change with AI. In some sectors, jobs will be replaced by AI systems. Which professional areas these will be is still speculative : Office assistants, secretaries, call center employees, administration, procurement, banking. What is certain is that AI tools can already perform many automated tasks without human intervention. Whether this will be faster and more efficient cannot be clearly proven; every system requires maintenance, administration, updates, and adaptation. Whether AI can improve our systems is questionable. Perhaps technologically possible, but is this economically desirable? In many respects, this development is a challenge for society as a whole, especially in times of economic crisis, when jobs are being lost and existing industry is being overtaken by technological change.
When Microsoft rolled out its Windows 95 platform with Office programs: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—worldwide and made it a sales hit, office work became easier, but also more complicated, as many more documents and spreadsheets could now be created and saved in a short space of time than before, when people still worked with typewriters and paper files. In fact, the amount of work has more than doubled every year. Everyone knows that with the introduction of electronic mail, there are even more messages to deal with than before. E-mails have greatly increased the workload for everyone. Today, we use software for all administrative tasks. Does this mean that we have less to do than without these tools? Hardly any people can answer this question, because most people don’t even remember how someone managed their work without software from Microsoft & Co.
AI systems can not yet think for themselves. They can perform routine tasks, and they can process, manipulate, and copy enormous amounts of data. The first books created by AI are already on the market; music is also available from the machine. Soon movies and streaming series will be created with AI tools, perhaps without any actors at all, because AI can also create them. Who will still need a film crew that costs a lot of money? But can AI systems really create unique, artistic masterpieces that will still be admired in 50 or 100 years’ time? Or are they just ingenious copying machines that learn quickly and manipulate what they have learned? “Machine learning” is such a super cool AI buzzword: it contains the word “machine,” and machines are no smarter than their creators. At least not yet.
All science fiction readers are familiar with androids, cyborgs, and other half-machine-half-human beings that are sometimes difficult to distinguish from real people and want to take over. Philip K. Dick’s most famous novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” which the author wrote in 1968, revolves around the question of humanity versus artificiality. Have the androids created by humans exceeded the limits of their capabilities? Are they better than humans? Or are they indistinguishable from humans? What distinguishes them from Homo sapiens anyway? The answer is given at the end of the novel: empathy. Robots cannot empathize with others and cannot put themselves in others’ shoes. That’s all well and good, but not very useful in a capitalist value system like the one we have today.
In Arthur C. Clark’s classic science fiction novel “2001 – A Space Odyssey”, also first published in 1968, the supercomputer HAL9000 on the spaceship “Discovery One” takes control at the end by eliminating all the other passengers and gaining the upper hand on its own. The book and especially the film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick are classics. Meanwhile, we have been able to produce supercomputers that perform countless tasks and have made a huge technological leap forward. Nevertheless, we have not managed to fly to Mars or even explore our solar system with manned space flights. Much has remained science fiction and will not be feasible in the near or distant future, despite artificial intelligence. Overcoming the limits of physics is more difficult than automating an office task.
The big question we should all be asking ourselves is, who benefits from the AI boom and who has a vested interest in driving it forward? Yes, we know, the US IT giants, but there are also Chinese, Russian, Indian, and other interests to consider. It’s often about control over individuals and pretextual security aspects. AI can achieve enormous things in surveillance. This is about spying on millions, even billions, of individuals: what they post, where they go, what they buy, what they are interested in, and who they communicate with. It is primarily about commercial interests and targeted marketing, but behind the scenes, surveillance, and control are regularly on the agenda, and not just for police reasons alone. The surveillance industry has enormous financial potential and is a cash cow. Die-hard science fiction fans know that almost all visions of the future have autocratic and authoritarian traits and are anything but libertarian democracies in which human rights are respected.
There is no need to be afraid of AI systems. Even the 18th-century machine strikers thought, they would lose their jobs because the new machines could do everything much faster and in greater quantities. In the long term, they were mistaken. Machines could not replace people, but they did create the need for new job opportunities. Even today, every little secretary requires good computer skills to perform their tasks. And even children can find their way around digital platforms and online games faster than their parents. One thing is certain: our world is becoming more digital, and everyone who wants to find their way in it and be successful must learn how to use this technology. This is the only way that we as humanity can use our technology sensibly in the long term for the well-being of all people and eliminate the risks and dangers that new technologies can cause.
To come back to the previous question: Will we all benefit from the AI boom? You could ask a counter-question. Haven’t we all benefited from digital office programs, microchips, the internet, and social media platforms? Hasn’t technological development in the IT sector created millions of new jobs and thousands of new professions? AI is a powerful tool, for some a little threatening, but there is no doubt that in the long term it will trigger a new technological revolution and dominate our working world, our society, and our progress. Whether everyone will benefit from this depends on how seriously national governments are interested in allowing everyone to participate in the boom and putting the machine at the service of humanity as a whole. Because one thing is clear: every new technology has risks, and researching these and taking timely countermeasures should remain a political and social priority.
Mark S. Degner. Author and Researcher with PhD in Sociology and Political Science
September, 2025
Mike Masuri - Literatur, Film, Kultur und Politik 
Leave a comment