In his 2026 address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Yuval Noah Harari advances a provocative thesis: artificial intelligence (AI) represents not merely a technological tool but a novel form of agency capable of reshaping law, finance, religion, and human identity itself. This reaction paper critically examines Harari’s central claims, particularly his argument that AI’s mastery of language enables it to appropriate domains historically constitutive of human authority. While Harari offers a powerful conceptual framework for understanding AI as an autonomous agent and legal subject, this paper argues that his position risks linguistic reductionism and underestimates the resilience of embodied, affective, and institutional dimensions of human meaning-making. The paper concludes that Harari’s intervention is best understood not as a deterministic prediction but as a warning that demands urgent political and ethical response.
Language, Agency, and the End of Human Centrality
