Mario López Ayala, PhD
In the turbulent intersection between power and innovation, the future is no longer written by politicians alone but co-authored by algorithms and those who command them.
Paris, October 2025
Giuliano da Empoli has always been fascinated by power, but in his latest work he turns his attention to a force even more formidable than politics itself: technology. The acclaimed author of “The Wizard of the Kremlin” has returned with a sharp and unsettling reflection on how states, corporations, and digital systems are merging into a single architecture of influence. In his view, this fusion is not a coincidence but the defining feature of the twenty-first century. It is a process that bends laws, challenges institutions, and yet produces the kinds of transformations that governments alone could never achieve.
At the core of Da Empoli’s argument is a provocative idea: politics and technology are no longer separate domains. They are mutually dependent, feeding and legitimizing each other. Political actors use technology to extend their reach, manipulate public opinion, and govern societies more efficiently. Technology companies, in turn, rely on political structures to expand, regulate competition, and secure their dominance. The result is a hybrid regime in which power is no longer defined solely by control over armies, borders, or bureaucracies, but also by control over data, infrastructure, and narrative.
This hybrid model, Da Empoli argues, has fundamentally altered the nature of governance. In the industrial era, states were the undisputed centers of decision-making. Today, they share that authority with private platforms, digital ecosystems, and algorithmic systems that operate at scales no government can match. Algorithms decide what billions of people read, watch, and believe, shaping political realities long before parliaments debate them. In this environment, traditional institutions are often reactive rather than proactive, adjusting to changes engineered by actors they do not fully understand.
The alliance between politics and technology is not just pragmatic. It is deeply ideological. Both realms share a belief in optimization, in the idea that society can and should be engineered toward efficiency and control. This shared mindset explains why governments increasingly adopt the tools and language of the tech industry: data-driven decision-making, predictive policing, digital identity systems, and algorithmic governance. It also explains why technology companies often present themselves as public actors, promising to solve problems such as misinformation, climate change, or inequality — challenges that political institutions have struggled to address.
Yet this alliance is not without danger. Da Empoli warns that when politics and technology become too closely intertwined, accountability can vanish. Decisions once made by elected officials in public forums are now outsourced to opaque systems governed by corporate incentives. Surveillance capabilities once reserved for intelligence agencies are now embedded in consumer devices. The line between consent and coercion becomes blurred, and democratic oversight is often powerless against technological complexity.
The consequences are already visible. Digital platforms have become indispensable to electoral campaigns, public communication, and even social movements. Artificial intelligence systems influence policy decisions on welfare distribution, urban planning, and border control. Authoritarian regimes use technology not only to censor but to preempt dissent, identifying opposition networks before they can mobilize. Even in democratic societies, the temptation to use technology for political gain — whether through data profiling, behavioral targeting, or algorithmic manipulation — is difficult to resist.
Da Empoli does not see this as a dystopian inevitability but as a structural reality that must be confronted. The solution, he suggests, is not to reject technology but to politicize it. Societies must reclaim democratic control over technological development and deployment. This means designing regulatory frameworks that ensure transparency and accountability, building public alternatives to private digital infrastructures, and cultivating a new generation of political leaders who understand the technical dimensions of power.
He also argues for a cultural shift. Citizens must recognize that technology is not neutral. Every algorithm embeds values, priorities, and trade-offs. Every infrastructure decision redistributes power. Treating technology as a political question rather than a purely technical one is essential to preserving democratic agency in a digitized world.
The title of Da Empoli’s new work — “We break laws but create miracles” — captures this paradox perfectly. Innovation often outpaces regulation. It breaks legal frameworks that were designed for a different era. But it also achieves feats once considered impossible: curing diseases, connecting continents, empowering individuals. The challenge is to harness that creative force without allowing it to erode the foundations of justice, rights, and democracy.
In the end, Da Empoli’s message is both cautionary and hopeful. The merger of politics and technology is irreversible, but its outcomes are not predetermined. The same tools that enable manipulation can also enhance participation. The same algorithms that entrench inequality can also expose injustice. The future will depend on how societies choose to govern the tools that now govern them.
His work invites us to see beyond simplistic narratives of innovation as inherently good or inherently dangerous. Instead, it demands that we understand technology as a new form of power — one that must be negotiated, contested, and ultimately democratized. Politics, he suggests, is no longer just about laws, votes, and institutions. It is about code, platforms, and data. And in that sense, the political struggles of the future will be fought as much in the halls of government as in the server farms of the digital empires.
The visible and the hidden, in context. / Lo visible y lo oculto, en contexto.