All watched over by machines of loving grace—AI and control, symbolic violence, and the hyperreal

This paper examines the fundamental transformation of social reality through AI systems by synthesizing three critical theoretical frameworks: Baudrillard’s hyperreality, Bourdieu’s symbolic violence, and Deleuze’s societies of control. Moving beyond conventional analyses of AI as technological advancement, it introduces the concept of “meta-simulacra” to theorize how AI systems transcend mere simulation to actively construct reality through recursive feedback loops between algorithmic predictions and human behavior. Through analysis of contemporary technologies—from predictive policing to social credit systems—the research identifies four interconnected mechanisms of algorithmic power: First, as meta-simulacra, AI systems generate hyperreal environments where simulations precede and determine social reality rather than represent it. Second, through algorithmic symbolic violence, these systems naturalize their judgments while concealing their constructed nature, transforming algorithmic classifications into seemingly objective social truths. Third, they implement continuous modulation, where control operates through constant adjustment of possibilities rather than disciplinary constraints. Fourth, they create algorithmic nexus points—critical intersections where information flows, control mechanisms, and reality construction converge to generate new forms of power and control mechanisms. This theoretical synthesis reveals how AI systems produce a novel form of subjectivity—the “modulated self”—where individuals become individuals, simultaneously decomposed into data points and recomposed through algorithmic processes in a control society. The paper demonstrates that this transformation represents not merely a technological evolution but a fundamental shift in how reality is constructed, power is exercised, and human experience is shaped.