About the Book​

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AI isn’t just a tool. It’s a new form of power. It is a revolution in the making—perhaps the most profound in human history.​

 

But what kind of world will we wake up into tomorrow, as if emerging from a dream? A future of technological wonders, scientific breakthroughs, and new freedoms? Or a dystopia of deepening inequality, surveillance, and the slow erosion of human agency? And if the stakes are this high, do we have the right to sleep through the ride?​

 

Rage Against the Autonomous Machine is not a warning about some distant future—it is a wake-up call for now. If AI is being “aligned,” the real question is: aligned with whom? With humanity’s deepest needs, or with the private interests of those who control the infrastructure?​

 

To reclaim agency, we must understand how we arrived here. Thanos Panagopoulos takes readers on a sweeping journey through the long quest for autonomous machines, tracing the historical forces that shaped the present, and the political economy now shaping what comes next. Engaging frameworks such as technofeudalism, techno-imperialism, neo-mercantilism, platform capitalism, and surveillance capitalism, he cuts through Silicon Valley hype and apocalyptic fatalism alike and names the emerging order: autonomous capital, techno-natural monopolies, and a new ruling class—the Intelligarchs.​

 

Whether you come from a sociological, political, or technical background—or feel fluent across all of them—this is the interdisciplinary book you have been waiting for.​

 

Drawing on both technical expertise and critical theory, Rage Against the Autonomous Machine equips readers with the concepts to think clearly, act deliberately, and resist the normalization of machine rule. It culminates in the DREAM framework: a call to democratize AI before it becomes the operating system of inequality, surveillance, and domination.​

 

Deeply academic yet accessible, rigorous yet vivid, this book is both a warning and an invitation: a call for action, and a call for wonder. Dialectics—as they should be.

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What this Book Does

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1. Accessible, no-background-needed introduction
Explains what is happening with AI today—from everyday applications and headlines to the deeper technological shift driving the next era—without requiring a technical background.
 

2. AI as political economy, not “just tech”
Shows how AI has become central to contemporary political economy, reshaping labor, institutions, and power—and intensifying global geopolitical conflict in the ongoing AI Cold War.
 

3. Historically grounded narrative
Presents a sweeping, historically grounded account of AI that connects technical evolution to transformations in production, labor, and institutional control.
 

4. Conceptual clarity and new vocabulary
Introduces a clear conceptual framework for understanding autonomous capital, the concentration of AI infrastructure, and the emergence of AI-centered power.​​​​​​​

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About the Author

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Thanos (Aris Athanasios) Panagopoulos is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at California State University, Fresno, where he founded and directs the Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems (AIIS) Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southampton and was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley.

 

His work spans artificial intelligence and intelligent systems, focusing on human-centered technologies for social good and the socioeconomic, ethical, and political consequences of autonomous systems. Shaped intellectually and politically in Greece during the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, he bridges technical practice with political economy, philosophy, and critical theory.

 

His first book, Rage Against the Autonomous Machine, examines today’s AI revolution and Big Tech’s dominance, and the growing struggle over autonomy, power, and resistance.

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