Authoritarian Recursions: How Fiction, History, and AI Reinforce Control in Education, Warfare, and Discourse

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of \textit{authoritarian recursion} to theorize how AI systems consolidate institutional control across education, warfare, and digital discourse. It identifies a shared recursive architecture in which algorithms mediate judgment, obscure accountability, and constrain moral and epistemic agency. Grounded in critical discourse analysis and sociotechnical ethics, the paper examines how AI systems normalize hierarchy through abstraction and feedback. Case studies -- automated proctoring, autonomous weapons, and content recommendation -- are analyzed alongside cultural imaginaries such as Orwell's \textit{Nineteen Eighty-Four}, Skynet, and \textit{Black Mirror}, used as heuristic tools to surface ethical blind spots. The analysis integrates Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT), relational ethics, and data justice to explore how predictive infrastructures enable moral outsourcing and epistemic closure. By reframing AI as a communicative and institutional infrastructure, the article calls for governance approaches that center democratic refusal, epistemic plurality, and structural accountability.