The Dawn or Renewal of Democracy? A Critique of Transhumanist AI-enhanced Polyarchy by Krisztián Szabados Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently emerged as a popular subject in political science. The prevailing body of research has primarily focused on the ramifications of the rapid evolution of AI as a disruptive force. Notably, among these analyses risk-averse, dystopian perspectives dominate that accentuate the potential peril posed by malicious employment of AI, particularly in undermining democratic institutions. However, amidst this discourse, an underlying current of techno-optimism pervades, put forward by the ideological and social movement known as transhumanism. Once labeled as the world’s most dangerous ideology by Francis Fukuyama (2004), transhumanism has presented a complex set of original concepts with an increasing transformative and disruptive potential concerning the organization of political systems. However, transhumanist theorists also put forward their own ideas to save democracy. This paper posits that transhumanist democracy can be conceptualized as an AI-enhanced polyarchy within Robert Dahl’s conceptual framework (Dahl 1972, 2015). The question I intend to answer is whether the use of advanced AI as articulated in the transhumanist democracy theory would result in the expansion of polyarchy. In the first part this paper will discuss the role that various transhumanist theorists assign to AI in (hopefully) improving the quality and performance of democracy as a system of government while mitigating the risks generally associated with integrating intelligent machines or software in the democratic process. In the second part, Robert Dahl’s model of polyarchy will be utilized to describe and categorize the transhumanist proposals. Then, a critical analysis of the transhumanist theory of democracy will be conducted withing Dahl’s theoretical framework. Before beginning the analysis, it is important to clarify and define several key terminologies to avoid any potential ambiguities. The terms "artificial intelligence" or "AI" will describe synthetic intelligence in general, irrespective of its cognitive capabilities relative to human- level intelligence. The terms "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), "general AI," and "superintelligence" will be employed interchangeably to denote synthetic, biologically 1