Artificial Intelligence Governance and the Future of Human Societies: Dignity, Meaning and Civilizational Responsibility

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) governance has converged around transparency, accountability, safety, privacy, fairness, human rights, human oversight and risk management. However, this vocabulary remains limited when AI is understood as a sociotechnical force shaping agency, work, truth, democratic trust, meaning and long-term human futures. This article is a critical conceptual review, with a structured Scopus-based mapping of 48 peer-reviewed articles, a critical documentary analysis of six international AI governance frameworks and a supplementary interpretive engagement with Magnifica Humanitas. Using a PRISMA-informed flow diagram for transparent reporting and abductive thematic synthesis, the study identifies four fragmented literatures: AI ethics and governance; anthropological accounts of dignity, autonomy, agency and vulnerability; spiritual and theological approaches to meaning and moral formation; and civilizational analyses of democracy, war, transhumanism and existential risk. The findings do not suggest that these concerns are absent from AI ethics; rather, they show that they remain dispersed and are not consistently translated into governance criteria. This article proposes the Anthropological, Spiritual and Civilizational (ASC) Framework as a diagnostic heuristic for extending trustworthy AI toward dignity, truth, social justice and humane futures. The framework is conceptual and requires future empirical and expert validation.