The brain of the future and the viability of democratic governance: The role of artificial intelligence, cognitive machines, and viable systems

The technological transformation driven by artificial cognitive machines is already beginning to have far reaching consequences, some unintended, at a scale and pace which exceeds even that of the first and second industrial revolutions. This paper aims to discuss these implications, both with an ontological and epistemological perspective, to assess the potential challenges for the systemic viability of democratic societies: a fundamental change in the nature of economic wealth creation, which could raise significant social tensions, combined with the paradoxical reduction in the effectiveness of human communication. It then explores the potential role of artificial cognitive machines to address its own challenges, introducing the idea of a future brain for public governance, understanding brain as an emergent property resulting from the interaction of human agents and AI systems created to address the priorities of social organizations.