Generative AI as a symptom of the polycrisis of us digital capitalism and of the Trumpian end-times fascism

Vrečko Ilc, Blaž (author)

The article critically interrogates why the build-out of generative “AI” in the ideological-material form it has taken in the USA can be viewed as symptomatic of the intensifying polycrisis of US digital capitalism and the US-led neo-imperial order. Employing a neo-Luddite-Marxist approach to analyse the technology of GenAI, first the eugenic-eschatological ideological underpinnings of it are examined, along with the central problematic, ecologically unsustainable technical characteristic of its development and functioning and the politico-economic conditions of its possibility which make it a symptom of the polycrisis. The second focus is the centrality of GenAI in digital capitalism’s mutation to become an even more speculative, unsustainable, environment- and society-destructive, power-centralising and worker-exploiting form – ‘Muskism’, that is parasitically dependent on the US state. Finally, it tackles the role of GenAI in the implementation of the end-times fascist project of the second Trump Administration and its deliberate escalation of the polycrisis.

• Language: English
• Keywords: AI, end-times fascism, digital capitalism, Muskism, Trump, polycrisis, generative artificial intelligence, data centers, environmental aspect, platform economy
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.02 - Review Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 28.10.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 559-588
• Numbering: Letn. 63, št. 3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-190929
• UDC: 338.47:004.8:323.4
• ISSN on article: 0040-3598
• DOI: 10.51936/tip.63.3.559
• COBISS.SI-ID: 304322051
• Publication date in RUL: 07.11.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Teorija in praksa : revija za družbena vprašanja
• Shortened title: Teor. praksa
• Publisher: Fakulteta za družbene vede
• ISSN: 0040-3598
• COBISS.SI-ID: 763652

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
• Description: A creative commons license that bans commercial use, but the users don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Generativna UI kot simptomatična tehnologija polikrize ameriškega digitalnega kapitalizma in Trumpovega fašizma zadnjih dni

Abstract

Članek kritično analizira, zakaj lahko generativno umetno inteligenco (UI), njen razvoj in implementacijo v prevladujoči ideološko-materialni obliki razumemo kot simptomatično tehnologijo polikrize ameriškega digitalnega kapitalizma in ameriško vodenega neoimperialnega sistema, ki se vedno bolj zaostruje. Z neoluditsko-marksističnim pristopom se analiza najprej osredini na evgenično-eshatološko ideologijo, ki predstavlja podstat te tehnologije, ter na ključne značilnosti, ki jo naredijo za simptom polikrize sistema. Temu sledi analiza osrednje vloge te tehnologije pri preobrazbi digitalnega kapitalizma v še bolj netrajnostno ter okoljsko in družbeno uničujočo obliko, imenovano muskizem. Gre za obliko, v kateri je moč še bolj centralizirana, delavci bolj izkoriščani, korporacije pa so v še bolj parazitskem odnosu z ameriško državo. Na koncu pa se usmerimo na osrednjost generativne UI v politikah fašizma zadnjih dni v okviru Trumpove druge administracije, ki po avtorjevem mnenju prispeva k zaostrovanju polikrize.

• Keywords: UI, fašizem zadnjih dni, digitalni kapitalizem, muskizem, Trump, polikriza, generativna umetna inteligenca, podatkovni centri, okoljski vidik, ekonomija na poziv