The hegemonic world picture: Representation, post-truth, and artificial intelligence

Abstract

The present article contributes to recent scholarship on ‘post-truth’ politics. It employs a semiotic approach that traces the onslaught of ‘post-truth’ politics to the logic of AI-powered communication systems. AI-powered digital communications expedite information flows, leading to the complexification and ambiguation of representation, which is leveraged in the form of political rhetoric in the service of factional interests and hegemonic ambitions. From this perspective, post-truth politics involve the symbolic consolidation of disparate (digital) representations vis-à-vis ‘total representations’ where ‘a part’ comes to represent ‘the whole’. By lacking propositional specificity, total representations exceed on a de facto basis conventional truth verification standards and are implicated in the alignment of factional interests and political outlooks by contingently fixing the free-flow of information in digital communications. The article concludes by situating its findings within current debates on de-democratization, directing attention to how rhetorical representations can be leveraged in the service of democracy.