HISTORY: 9 Dec 2025 – 18 Dec 2025
REFERENCE: Self
Author: Gerd Doeben-Henisch
Co-author: ChatGPT 5.1
Protocol used: New Version in INSERTION No. 3: https://emerging-life.org/en/2025/12/11/insert-no-3-new-protocol-for-the-asymmetrical-human-ai-symbiosis/
Contact: info@emerging-life.org
eBook Publication
Human, AI & Democracy – Shaping the Future Together
Author: Gerd Doeben-Henisch
ASIN : B0G6XNXBRF
Publisher: amazon – kindle Ausgabe
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G6XNXBRF
What is this book about?
Artificial intelligence is changing our world — faster, deeper, and more comprehensively than many expected. Along with these new technical possibilities, however, uncertainties are also growing:
What remains of the human being?
How are democracy and political decision-making processes changing?
And who is actually shaping this future?
This book deliberately does not address these questions from the perspective of technological feasibility or economic exploitation, but from the viewpoint of the politically acting human being. AI is neither demonized nor glorified. It is demystified — as what it really is: a powerful tool whose effects depend entirely on how people understand it, classify it, and use it.
At the center is the thesis that democracy in the age of AI will remain viable only if citizens once again become capable of speaking and acting: through shared understanding, through shared knowledge, and through the ability to formulate goals for a common future.
The book combines theoretical reflection with practical experience drawn from citizen dialogues, municipal projects, and the long-term research project emerging-life.org. It sees itself less as a finished doctrine than as an invitation to think along, to join the discussion, and to actively participate.
Responses to the book
“I read your manifesto with great interest. What can I say: I like it very much — in terms of its intentionality, the clarity of thought and language, the focus on what is essential, and the forcefulness and clarity with which you demystify AI and place the politically acting human being at the center.”
(Reader’s response after reading)
Who is this book intended for?
This book is addressed to:
- citizens who are asking how democracy can be preserved and renewed under the conditions of AI,
- people in municipalities, initiatives, and educational contexts who are seeking new forms of joint future planning,
- readers who want to gain a sober yet engaged perspective on AI beyond hype and fear.
It does not require any technical specialist knowledge, but it does require a willingness to engage with fundamental questions of human coexistence.
How did this book come into being?
Anyone who comes across the announcement of this book on the emerging-life.org blog may wonder whether the specific working relationship between Gerd and ChatGPT — described as an asymmetrical human–AI symbiosis — also played a role in the creation of this book.
The answer is clear: yes — decisively so.
Without this form of cooperation, the book would not exist in its present form.
The texts collected in this book did not emerge in isolation, nor were they written according to a predefined publishing plan. Instead, they developed over time through a continuous dialogical process between a human author and an AI system. This process unfolded publicly in the form of so-called Experiments in this emerging-life.org blog.
In these experiments, the human author formulates his thoughts, questions, and experiences (Phase A). The AI responds with structured reflections, analyses, and counter-questions (Phase B). This is followed by iterative dialogical rounds (Phases C and D), in which arguments are sharpened, assumptions clarified, and conceptual structures refined.
What is essential here is the asymmetry of this symbiosis:
the human remains the origin of meaning, responsibility, intention, and lived experience, while the AI functions as a powerful linguistic-cognitive tool — capable of resonance, structuring, and variation, but without its own goals, emotions, or lived reality.