Artificial intelligence is not merely changing technology. It is reshaping the foundations of civilization. This essay examines the transition from WEIRD Society — Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic — to what Mo Gawdat calls the FACE RIP Society: a world transformed by AI across freedom, accountability, connection, economics, reality, intelligence, and power. By placing Joseph Henrich’s theory of WEIRD psychology beside Gawdat’s warning about AI, this essay argues that the AI crisis is not only technical or economic. It is civilizational, psychological, political, and moral. The central question is no longer whether AI will become more powerful, but whether human beings can preserve agency, meaning, democratic legitimacy, and genuine relationships in a world increasingly mediated by intelligent machines.
From WEIRD Society to FACE RIP Society: AI, Human Agency, and the Crisis of Civilization
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