Objectivism and Artificial Intelligence: Confronting the new political, social, and economic environment

by Charles Barr

Artificial intelligence is transforming the world at extraordinary speed. Machines can now generate language, images, music, designs, decisions, and actions that once seemed to require human thought alone. As AI moves into transportation, medicine, business, education, law, entertainment, and warfare, old assumptions are collapsing and new questions are appearing everywhere.

Can AI form concepts?
Can it become truly autonomous?
Can it be an inventor?
If technology reduces material necessity, what becomes of work, purpose, and human flourishing?
Do moral standards change in virtual reality?
What should government do about AI, and what must it never do?

Objectivism and Artificial Intelligence examines these questions through all five branches of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and politics. It argues that while AI is changing the human environment dramatically, it does not change the basic facts of reality, reason, value, or rights.

In some areas, Objectivist principles provide clear answers. In others, this book presents the strongest arguments on both sides and identifies the issue as an open question. The result is a serious philosophical study of AI, freedom, creativity, law, and the future of human life.

222 pages, Paperback

Published April 26, 2026

About the author

A leading authority on British cinema, Charles Barr is Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the University of East Anglia, where he taught from 1976 until his retirement in 2006.