Dr. Wissam Saade, lecturer in political science and the history of political thought at Saint Joseph University, engages with the global transformation unfolding at the crossroads of ecological crisis and technological acceleration—a shift redefining not only material conditions but the very meaning of human existence. His intervention at the AI in Lebanon Conference highlights the epistemic and ethical ruptures caused by artificial intelligence, raising urgent questions about agency, desire, and responsibility in an increasingly automated and data-driven world. Lebanon—and more broadly the Global South—cannot afford to remain at the margins of this upheaval, facing the compounded challenges of digital dependency, unequal access, and geopolitical asymmetries.
Drawing on Marcel Mauss’s concept of the “total social fact”, Saade frames AI not simply as a tool, but as a totalizing force that reshapes social life itself—obliterating clear boundaries between human and machine, nature and artifice, intelligence and automation.
AI restructures labor, power, and value, while extending new forms of control. Its pervasive reach transforms not only systems but subjectivities, exposing a deeper crisis of technodiversity, where diverse cultures—especially those in the Global South—must renegotiate their ontological frameworks under the relentless pressure of global computation and digital dependencies.