The Algorithmic Edge: How the Global AI Race Is Undermining American Democracy
Geopolitics, Accelerationism, and the Erosion of Inner Sovereignty
Author’s Note
There are moments when observing the news cycle, my mind wonders “What might we be missing amongst the noise of sensational accounts?” Were I a wagering man, my money would be on the certainty that the seemingly intentionally saturated news cycle is designed to titillate, enrage, and even overwhelm; thereby guaranteeing we miss something of considerable import. The more I ruminate on this real possibility, the more of it I am certain. In what follows, I explore how the global AI/AGI Race may be quietly reshaping the democratic soul of America—and why the real frontier is not artificial, but eternal.
The fabric of American democracy is fraying—sometimes subtly, sometimes with alarming visibility. We see it in the erosion of voting rights, in algorithmically-fueled disinformation campaigns, in the polarization of civic discourse, and in a Congress increasingly paralyzed by partisanship. While many explanations have been offered—from economic precarity to cultural backlash—there is another, quieter force operating beneath the surface: a global race for dominance in Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence (AI/AGI).
This race, while largely couched in economic and technological terms, may be having a lasting effect on the very scaffolding of democratic society. And the United States, long seen as a beacon of liberal governance, now finds itself at the intersection of existential urgency and philosophical amnesia.
Echoes of Races Past: From Arms to Algorithms
History teaches us that existential rivalries often catalyze the restructuring of society. The Space Race of the mid-20th century, for example, pushed the United States to invest massively in education, aerospace, and computation. The Arms Race redirected public funding, shaped foreign policy, and brought the world to the brink of annihilation more than once.
These races were not just about dominance—they were about worldview. Each was framed as a moral imperative: to beat the Soviets, to reach the stars, to safeguard civilization.
The AI/AGI Race, particularly between the U.S. and China, bears a similar spiritual architecture. But this time, the race is not just about weapons or territory. It is about who defines reality. And that raises a different order of stakes—particularly of an existential nature for those who mistakenly view themselves as the pinnacle of human society.
The Stakes of the AI/AGI Race
Artificial General Intelligence represents not merely an economic breakthrough, but a metaphysical rupture. In the hands of an authoritarian regime, AGI becomes a tool for perfect surveillance, absolute control, and predictive governance. In the hands of a liberal democracy, it offers a different—but equally precarious—temptation: technocratic substitution for public deliberation.
As nations rush to develop AGI, they are also rewriting the implicit contracts that hold their societies together. Civil liberties, transparency, and even truth itself may be seen as expendable in the service of acceleration.
In this context, disruptions to American democracy may not be mere side effects. They may be strategic. What better way to outpace your rivals than by removing the “drag” of democratic consensus?
Authoritarian Efficiency vs. Democratic Deliberation
China’s approach to AI development is centralized, data-rich, and ideologically aligned. It has no qualms about using facial recognition to monitor citizens, social credit systems to engineer behavior, or educational algorithms to shape loyalty.
By contrast, the U.S. is hamstrung—by design—through checks and balances, public dissent, and a patchwork of regulatory bodies. The temptation, then, is to cut through the noise in order to remain competitive.
Hence the creeping centralization of tech policy. The fusion of state surveillance with corporate data mining. The bypassing of Congress through executive orders and agency regulations. The outsourcing of public opinion to algorithmically optimized content.
Democracy, it seems, is being traded—not explicitly, but effectively—for the promise of algorithmic supremacy.
The Metaphysics of Control
If we pause here and ask a deeper question—Why?—we uncover a spiritual deficit. The AI/AGI Race is not simply about intelligence. It is about control.
In a world increasingly shaped by complexity, uncertainty, and ecological fragility, AGI offers the illusion of omniscience. It tempts us with a kind of secular godhood: to know all, predict all, and manage all.
But this desire is rooted in fear—a fear of irrelevance, a fear of vulnerability, a fear of being surpassed by another intelligence (human or otherwise).
The United States, in trying to outpace China, may be abandoning the very philosophical core that once animated its highest ideals: the belief that liberty, dialogue, and dignity are more than just inefficiencies—they are sacred.
The Danger of Accelerated Authoritarian Drift
As the U.S. rushes to compete, it may quietly adopt the operating system of its rival. Surveillance becomes normalized. Dissent becomes branded as disinformation. The algorithm becomes the arbiter of truth.
Already, we see signs of this in the militarization of data, the weaponization of social platforms, and the deliberate sowing of confusion by both foreign and domestic actors.
This is not simply dysfunction—it is a kind of authoritarian drift, masked by the rhetoric of innovation.
Pure Consciousness as the Untouched Alternative
There is another way to frame the race—one not rooted in fear or control, but in alignment.
The ancient Vedic understanding of Pure Consciousness posits that intelligence is not something created but uncovered. It is already present, infinite, and structured at the basis of all things.
A society aligned with this fundamental understanding would not race to “beat” others, but to realize its own fullness. It would invest in coherence, not just computation; in unity, not just utility.
Rather than racing toward an artificial general intelligence, such a society would cultivate natural integral intelligence—rooted in stillness, clarity, and ethical depth.
And it is here that an alternative paradigm emerges—one informed by experience, reflection, and a model of growth that honors the full spectrum of human unfoldment.
A Consciousness-Based Framework for the Future
If the AI/AGI Race reflects a worldview of extraction, acceleration, and control, the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress offers an entirely different orientation—one that begins with consciousness and ends in service.
The Model unfolds in stages:
Tier One: Awakening to Self through inward silence, reclaiming our connection to Pure Consciousness and setting the foundation for inner coherence.
Tier Two: Cultivating Understanding through reflection, study, and ethical orientation—realizing that external development must mirror internal clarity.
Tier Three: Moving into Expression—where thought, word, and deed become aligned with a higher order, and human creativity becomes a vehicle for collective upliftment.
This is not a static model but a living architecture—cyclical, generative, and deeply human. It is grounded in the teachings of Freemasonry, the science of meditation, and the arc of ancient and modern thought.
Where the AGI paradigm demands domination over uncertainty, the Model encourages a dance with it. Where the race to AGI threatens to displace the human spirit, the Model re-centers it as the source of true intelligence.
And crucially, progress here is not measured by output, but by depth—of insight, of connection, of consciousness.
In a world enamoured with speed, the Model insists: First, become still.
What Must Be Done: A Consciousness-Based Response
If the AI/AGI Race is truly shaping geopolitics, we must move beyond reactive policy and enter the realm of philosophical reorientation.
Here are a few starting points:
Public Awareness Campaigns on the metaphysical and civic implications of AGI.
Ethical Councils grounded not only in law and science, but in philosophy and consciousness studies.
Investment in Inner Technologies such as Transcendental Meditation® to offset the cultural entropy of algorithmic living.
International Treaties modeled after nuclear non-proliferation, but focused on AGI development and deployment.
Education Reforms that emphasize critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and the cultivation of self-awareness.
This is not about rejecting technology. It is about reclaiming who we are in the face of it.
The Erosion of the Individual as Sacred
At the heart of a true democracy lies an assumption both political and metaphysical: that the individual is not merely a unit of labor or consumption, but a bearer of innate dignity and potential. This is not simply a legal concept—it is a sacred one. From the Vedic concept of Atman (the Self as Pure Consciousness) to the Masonic reverence for the "perfectibility of man," democratic traditions have, at their highest, insisted that each person is a microcosm of something vast and holy.
But technocracy, especially one accelerated by AGI, views the individual differently. Within its logic, a human is primarily:
a data point,
a user,
a productivity metric,
or an obstacle to streamlined governance.
Even well-meaning iterations—such as algorithmic justice, predictive policing, or AI-enhanced pedagogy—risk reducing persons to patterns and probabilities. The soul of the citizen is nowhere in that equation.
And herein lies the metaphysical drift: when decision-making is increasingly outsourced to machines, when interpretation of human need is funneled through black-box systems, when responsiveness is measured by speed and not wisdom—democracy loses its grip on the sacred.
A Return to Soulful Governance
To resist this drift is not to reject technology. It is to insist that wisdom remain the operating system of civilization—not mere intelligence, and certainly not artificial.
The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress offers a prototype of such wisdom-in-action. It asserts that governance must emerge not from the cold calculus of efficiency, but from cultivated consciousness—rooted in the ethical imagination, tempered by stillness, and aimed at the collective good.
This is where the metaphysical tension between democracy and technocracy is clarified: the former sees human beings as ends in themselves; the latter, increasingly, as means to a system’s perpetuation.
In democracy rightly understood, process matters. Voice matters. Deliberation is not a flaw; it is the evidence of trust in human potential. But in technocracy, friction is a bug to be eliminated. And thus, the very conditions that make democracy messy are also those that make it humane.
The Role of the Philosopher-Citizen in the Age of AGI
If AGI systems increasingly mediate what we see, believe, and decide, the future will demand not only technologists but philosopher-citizens—those who can recognize when a society’s tools begin to reshape its soul.
This is the moment to re-awaken public philosophy.
Those versed in the layered nature of reality—those who know that non-local influences shape local outcomes, that consciousness precedes construction, that spiritual values are not optional accessories to civilization but its core scaffolding—must begin to speak, write, organize, and teach.
This includes educators, spiritual teachers, mystics, Freemasons worthy of the association, contemplatives, and ordinary citizens who sense that something precious is slipping away.
The AI/AGI Race may be won or lost in labs and legislative halls, but the real contest is occurring in the consciousness of the populace. Are we aware of what is happening? Are we prepared to meet it—not just with critique, but with a counter-vision?
The New Compass: From Acceleration to Alignment
We are standing at a crossroads unlike any in modern history. The past offered races of territory, weaponry, and space; today, it is a race of cognition, of control, of Consciousness itself. And as the pace of innovation continues to eclipse our philosophical reckoning, we must ask: Are we accelerating toward clarity—or merely away from consequence?
If democracy is to survive—not just in name but in essence—it must root itself once again in a deeper soil. The soil of coherence. Of stillness. Of sacred human potential.
And that means the work ahead is not just geopolitical, not just technological. It is spiritual. It is metaphysical. It is contemplative.
We must become societies that prioritize inner technologies alongside outer ones. That value the silence beneath the noise. That recognize, as the Vedic tradition reminds us, that intelligence is not manufactured but remembered—drawn from the field of Pure Consciousness, which is the birthright of every human being.
A Consciousness-Based Renaissance
This moment calls not for another industrial revolution, but for a consciousness-based renaissance—one where the inner dimensions of human life are not discarded as inefficient, but embraced as foundational.
The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress offers a map for this renaissance. It does not pit technology against spirit, but reorders them—placing consciousness as the generator, not the byproduct, of progress.
In this model, growth is not an upward curve of output, but an inward spiral of realization.
Progress is not domination over the environment, but harmony with the cosmos.
Governance is not reactive policy but awakened stewardship.
And democracy, far from being an outdated relic, is reframed as a sacred experiment in collective unfoldment—where liberty, dialogue, and dignity are not concessions but portals to deeper knowing.
The Quiet Revolution Begins Within
You may not be in a lab. You may not hold office. You may not program neural networks or draft foreign policy. But you have a role in this unfolding.
The quiet revolution begins with the simple acts:
A return to daily silence, where Pure Consciousness can be contacted and stabilized.
A willingness to question not only what is true, but what is good.
A refusal to relinquish our sacred messiness in favor of frictionless control.
A dedication to models of growth that elevate the spirit as well as the system.
And from this place, the new society can emerge—not through revolt, but through resonance. Not through force, but through frequency.
Closing Reflection: The Real Race Is Within
As nations race toward Artificial General Intelligence, let us not forget that there is already a Greater Intelligence coursing through the fabric of existence—one not built, but Being itself.
The most urgent race is not between countries or companies, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul. Will we deepen our understanding of Consciousness, ethics, and interdependence—or will we outsource our fate to code we cannot fully understand?
Let us recall the lesson of every sage, seer, and scholar who ever dared to look inward: democracy is not guaranteed. It must be continually authored by awake, coherent, and courageous individuals who see governance not as control, but as sacred responsibility.
America must decide whether it will lead through fear or through vision. Through machines or through meaning. Because if we lose ourselves in the process of “winning,” the victory will be hollow. However, if we awaken in time, we may see that the real frontier is not AGI—but A Greater Intelligence already waiting within us.
And, yes, it is our birthright. Because the only thing more powerful than an AGI optimized for domination . . . is a humanity optimized for awakening. The real frontier is not artificial. It is eternal. And without question, it is within.
Suggested Practice: The Real Race Is Within
Meditation Time: 15–20 minutes
Reflection:
Before sitting to meditate or rest in silence, pause to consider this question:
Am I accelerating toward clarity, or away from consequence?
Then, allow the mind to settle inward until even the question dissolves.
When your meditation or silent sitting is complete, take a few minutes to journal:
What does “intelligence” feel like when it arises from stillness rather than speed?
How might I align one daily decision or interaction with that deeper intelligence?
Where in my life can I replace control with coherence?
Optional Integration:
Spend the rest of the day observing moments when you feel “pushed” by external pace. In those moments, take a slow breath, return awareness to your center, and silently recall:
The real race is not to the swift, but to the still.
—
About the Author
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and The Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society.
He is the Founder and Director of Radical Scholar Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness-based research and public scholarship, and President of Serat Group Inc., the parent company of Transcendental Brain, a consulting and educational platform bringing consciousness science into leadership and institutional development.
Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program and serves as Host and Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly global gathering dedicated to the unifying power of silence.
He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul.
To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.