The Planetary Cyborg is the fused human-machine apparatus of militaries and institutions, from the post-war cybernetic complex to today's AI targeting systems. It can destroy a continent and still can't understand a village.
How the word moved
I named it in Apr 2026 in the second part of the AI Polyconflict series. The point was to see the cybernetic complex as a political technology with enormous power and enormous blind spots, and to see AI warfare as its latest avatar.
In my words
"The cybernetic complex was a political technology of extraordinary power and extraordinary blindness, a cyborg that could destroy a continent but couldn’t understand a village."
from Polyconflicts #6. The AI Polyconflict, Part II: The Planetary Cyborg, 9 Apr 2026
Related
- Depends on Augmented Intelligence - militaries already behave like artificial intelligences, and the cyborg rests on that.
- Inherited from Michel Foucault - what I take from Foucault is the idea of a political technology.
- Related Industrialization of Lethality - AI-driven lethality is the new cyborg at war.