Rise of intelligent systems challenges humanism to protect autonomy

The relationship among humanism, intelligence and fascism is one of the central themes of political philosophy and of 20th-century history. While humanism places human beings, their dignity and their capacity for reason at the center of social life, fascism emerged historically as a negation of those values and often subverted intelligence for the purposes of domination, control and destruction. Humanism starts from the premise that every human being has intrinsic dignity, is capable of free will and has the right to pursue self-fulfillment through reason, freedom and empathy. Fascism operates by the opposite logic. One of its central traits is radical collectivism: Individuals have no value in themselves, and their existence is justified only when it serves the state, the nation, the race or the dominant ideology, all raised to objects of worship (Gentile, 1993/2013; Paxton, 2004/2007).

Another unsettling trait of fascism is its anti-humanist character. The movement rejects the universality of human rights and replaces it with a hierarchical view of society based on force, exclusion and the dehumanization of others (Arendt, 1951/2013). In this context, differences are no longer recognized as an expression of human richness and come to be seen as threats to be fought.

Although it tends to present itself as an enemy of thought, fascism does not reject every form of intelligence. It values instrumental and technical intelligence, as long as it is put at the service of its goals. Engineers, bureaucrats, physicians and jurists efficiently used their intellectual capacity to organize propaganda systems, war economies and even the logistics of extermination. German philosophers Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer analyzed this phenomenon by showing how reason, reduced to an instrument of calculation and domination, can turn into the opposite of the enlightenment it promised (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1947/1985). Hannah Arendt, covering the trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, drew attention to what she called the “banality of evil”: the capacity of ordinary individuals to collaborate in atrocities without reflecting on their own acts. What characterized Eichmann, she said, was not wickedness but an inability to think (Arendt, 1963/1999).

By exalting thoughtless action, instinct and blind obedience, fascism seeks to weaken precisely what threatens it: critical thinking (Paxton, 2004/2007). Doubt, reflection and debate come to be seen as signs of weakness or treason. History records censorship, the persecution of professors, journalists and scientists, and the symbolic destruction represented by book burnings, such as the one carried out by Nazi students in Berlin in May 1933.

For humanist thinkers, however, true intelligence does not consist only of the ability to solve problems or develop technologies; it also involves the critical faculty of assessing the ethical consequences of human actions. Faced with the rise of fascism in Europe and its aftermath, intellectuals such as Thomas Mann, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt argued that totalitarian regimes thrive when intelligence is separated from empathy, responsibility and moral conscience. In the letters he wrote during the occupation of France, Camus counters the logic of his Nazi interlocutor, who justified everything in the name of the nation’s greatness, with fidelity to justice (Camus, 1945/2016); later, he would examine how the ideologies of the century turned murder into the logical conclusion of a line of reasoning (Camus, 1951/2017). For these authors, defending humanism requires the constant exercise of independent thought in the face of collective dogmas.

This reflection remains relevant. The contemporary challenges of humanism concern preserving human dignity amid unprecedented transformations. Access to ever more advanced technologies can dazzle the imagination and, paradoxically, distance us from ourselves. Adorno (1966/1995) already saw in the fetishistic relationship with technology, treated as an end in itself, a trait of the reified consciousness that made Auschwitz possible. Humanism therefore needs to broaden its historic mission. It is not enough to defend human nature; we must also protect the values that give human experience its meaning. In a scenario of seductive promises of automation, of substitution for thought and of integration between brain and machine, the humanist challenge will be to affirm that technology should expand human capabilities, not reduce human autonomy.

Another fundamental challenge is to build ethical principles capable of guiding coexistence between human diversity and new forms of intelligence and technology. Respect, responsibility, awareness and reciprocity will need to occupy a central position in this new moral architecture. As decisions about education, health, justice and work come to be mediated by intelligent systems, humanism will have to reaffirm the uniqueness of the person and prevent individuals from being reduced to data, statistics or predictive profiles. A person is always more complex than the definition of any algorithm.

Human freedom itself could be threatened by sophisticated technologies of monitoring, persuasion and behavioral influence. In response, the humanist ideal of autonomy will demand new educational models aimed at developing critical thinking, ethical awareness and self-knowledge. Adorno (1966/1995) already saw in autonomy, understood as the capacity for reflection and self-determination, the only real force against a repetition of Auschwitz. Without those capacities, individuals and societies become more vulnerable to renewed forms of manipulation, including those that reproduce fascist patterns through global communication networks.

At the same time, emotional isolation could grow despite hyperconnectivity. Arendt (1951/2013) identified in loneliness, the experience of not belonging to the world, the ground in which totalitarian domination takes root. Recovering empathy, genuine encounter and meaningful bonds will remain one of humanism’s central tasks. In this context, it will be essential to reaffirm the intrinsic value of diversity and of each person’s uniqueness. The great existential questions that have accompanied humanity since its origins will remain equally essential: Who am I? What do I live for? What relevant contribution can I offer the world? What does a full life mean?

Humanism will also be challenged to broaden its time horizon and to recognize not only the rights of those living in the present but also responsibilities toward future generations and the ecosystems on which the continuity of life depends. Finally, even in the face of extraordinary scientific advances, fundamental questions tied to love, suffering, death, purpose and transcendence will remain open. The humanist challenge will be to engage with those dimensions without succumbing to technicist reductionism or to anti-scientific obscurantism.

The tension between humanism and fascism is, ultimately, a tension between two opposing conceptions of humanity. On one side is the belief in dignity, freedom, diversity and moral responsibility. On the other is the subordination of the individual to collective projects that sacrifice the person in the name of power. In an increasingly complex and technologically sophisticated world, defending humanism may be less about preserving the past than about consciously building a future in which intelligence remains inseparable from ethics, empathy and commitment to human dignity.