Geoffrey Hinton, often called the godfather of AI, has suggested that artificial intelligence may have achieved consciousness, a claim that implies the next great empire could be governed not by humans but by machines.
Yet no empire, however powerful, has ever lasted forever. If Hinton is right, the AI empire will follow the same journey of rise, dominance and decline that has marked every human empire before it. That mobile phone you hold in your hand may one day be nothing more than a relic of an AI Empire which has gone the way of all human empires. As a Briton, I have often questioned the right of any nation to rule another. When I visited Mumbai, I saw the grandeur of the British Empire carved into stone — the Law Courts, the Gateway of India — magnificent yet built on imperial sand. These relics stood as reminders of a time when one people believed their vision of civilisation was universal. Empires rarely see themselves as conquerors. They begin with conviction: the belief that they bring progress, order and enlightenment.
The British Empire was no exception. Its administrators built railways, courts and schools, convinced they were improving the world. But beneath that confidence lay arrogance. The assumption that one culture’s ideals were superior to all others. In Mumbai, that vision remains etched in stone, but the authority that sustained it has long vanished. The buildings endure, their beauty now tinged with irony. History is full of such illusions. The Roman Empire rose from a small city of soldiers and farmers who believed in law and discipline. They conquered with efficiency and ruled with conviction. For centuries, they held the known world together, but the same force that built their empire brought about its end. Power became habit, ideals turned to ritual. Rome did not fall with a single blow. It simply lost faith in itself.
The British experience followed a similar rhythm, though expressed through trade rather than conquest. It was an empire of merchants and clerks, of maps and ledgers. The machinery of empire ran smoothly, the colonies obeyed, and the profits flowed. But the twentieth century exposed the fragility beneath the confidence. Two world wars drained Britain’s strength, and the colonies began to demand their own voices.
When India gained independence, it was both an ending and a revelation: empires never truly belong to those who build them. Every empire carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. Expansion and dominance breed arrogance, and arrogance blinds rulers to the resentment they create. The governed learn to imitate their governors, to use their laws and their weapons against them. By the time an empire recognises its mistake, it is already too late. The structures remain — the Courts, the gates, the statues — but their meaning changes. They no longer proclaim power. They testify to its passing. Currently, empires are built not on territory but on technology, wealth and weapons.
Moreover, corporations and AI now shape the world more profoundly than armies ever did. Yet the same pattern persists: confidence, expansion, overreach and decline. If AI truly becomes the next empire, one of data and code, it too will face the same fate. No empire, however intelligent, can escape the cycle of power and decay. The question is not whether a potential AI empire will fall, but how long it will take and when will those who are investing hundreds of billions into AI realise their mistake?
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