Science, innovation and civilization

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When Code Becomes Judge

Petru Cojocaru Science and civilization 22 minutes read

ARTICLE 8: Automated Justice and the Death of Equity: When Code Becomes Judge

PARTEA A II-A. INSTITUTION: Structural Violence and Automated Oppression. How corporations, the state, and judicial systems use AI to exert cold, systemic violence, devoid of a visible aggressor.

From the series "Technology changes tools, not human violence" Art 8 of 15 and Supplements

In 1215, English barons forced King John to sign a document at Runnymede. The Magna Carta established a principle that would become the foundation of Western justice: no free man could be imprisoned or punished except by the lawful judgment of his peers. Trial by jury. Trial by humans.

The principle was not born from idealism. It was born from experience. The barons had seen what happened when one man held absolute power to judge. They had seen the arbitrary arrests, the secret trials, the punishments that served the king's whims rather than any concept of justice.

They demanded that judgment be human. That it be visible. That it be accountable. That the judge look the accused in the eye and explain the reasoning.

Eight hundred and eleven years later, that principle is being erased. Not by a tyrant. Not by a coup. But by an optimization function.

In 2026, courts are drowning. Cases pile up. Judges are overworked. The system is slow, expensive, and inefficient. Justice delayed is justice denied, they say. So the solution arrives: automate it.

AI systems now recommend bail amounts. They predict recidivism risk. They suggest sentencing guidelines. In some jurisdictions, they issue verdicts for minor offenses. The judge is still there, technically. But the judge is no longer deciding. The judge is rubber-stamping. The algorithm has become the judge.

And the algorithm does not look you in the eye.

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Hyper-Personalised Aggression

Petru Cojocaru Science and civilization 23 minutes read

ARTICLE 2: Hyper-Personalised Aggression: From the Anonymous Troll to the Algorithmic Siege

PART I: THE HUMAN – Intimate Violence and the Externalisation of Cruelty

From the series "Technology changes tools, not human violence" Art 2 of 15 and Supplements 

In 2012, if someone wanted to hurt you online, they had to do something almost quaint by today's standards. They had to sit down at a keyboard. They had to think of an insult. They had to type it out. They had to hit send. Maybe they called you stupid. Maybe they posted something crude on your wall. Maybe they sent you a string of profanities that would make a sailor blush.

It was loud. It was crude. It was generic.

And it was survivable.

The anonymous troll of the early internet was a blunt instrument. They were the medieval bombard: inaccurate, wasteful, occasionally devastating, but fundamentally limited by the effort required to operate them. The troll had to stay awake. The troll had to think. The troll had to care enough to keep typing. The friction of effort acted as a natural brake on cruelty.

That world is gone.

In 2026, the troll does not type. The troll deploys. They set parameters, define targets, and walk away. The machine does the rest. And the machine never sleeps. The machine never gets bored. The machine never feels guilt.

The machine knows you better than you know yourself. And it has decided that your destruction is profitable.

This is not a hypothetical scenario for a dystopian novel. This is happening right now, to people your age, in your universities, in your workplaces, in your direct messages. You may have already been targeted and not even realised it.

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The Epidemic of Self-Harm

Petru Cojocaru Science and civilization 21 minutes read

ARTICLE 5: Violence Against the Self: Algorithmic Perfection and the Epidemic of Self-Harm

PART I: THE HUMAN – Intimate Violence and the Externalisation of Cruelty

From the series "Technology changes tools, not human violence" Art 5 of 15 and Supplements 

You look in the mirror. You see a face that is asymmetrical. You see skin that is tired. You see a body that is merely functional, carrying the slight postural slouch of a generation that spends ten hours a day hunched over glowing rectangles.

Then you open your phone. You see a face that is symmetrical. You see skin that is luminous, poreless, mathematically flawless. You see a body that is optimised for the golden ratio.

It is not a real face. It is not a real body. It is an AI-generated composite. It is a statistical abstraction, synthesised from billions of data points, optimised for maximum engagement, for desire, for retention.

And you feel a quiet, corrosive hatred for the reflection in the mirror.

This is not vanity. This is not a personal failing. This is violence. It is a specific, engineered form of psychological violence, deployed at an industrial scale, and you are both the victim and the executioner.

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How the Screen Kills Empathy

Petru Cojocaru Science and civilization 30 minutes read

ARTICLE 4: The Banality of Evil at a Distance: How the Screen Kills Empathy

PART I: THE HUMAN – Intimate Violence and the Externalisation of Cruelty

From the series "Technology changes tools, not human violence" Art 4 of 15 and Supplements

On 6 August 1945, at 08:15 local time, Paul Tibbets piloted the Enola Gay over the city of Hiroshima. He was thirty years old. He was a trained bomber pilot, a church-going man from Iowa, a father. He pressed a button. Fourteen seconds later, a weapon he could not see detonated 1,900 feet above a city he could barely recognise through the glare of the cockpit glass.

One hundred and forty thousand people died. Most of them evaporated. The rest burned. The rest were crushed by the shockwave. The rest died slowly, over weeks and months, from radiation sickness that no one at the time fully understood.

Tibbets slept soundly that night.

He did not say this because he was a monster. He said it because he did not see a single face. He saw instruments. He saw altitude. He saw wind speed. He saw the bomb bay doors opening. He saw a mission. The screen of the cockpit, the glass of the windshield, the distance of five miles of empty air between him and the city below—these were not just physical barriers. They were moral barriers. They insulated him from the reality of what he was doing.

He was not a murderer. He was a pilot. He was executing a function.

Eighty-one years later, you sit in a room in Bucharest, or London, or Lagos, or São Paulo. You are twenty-two years old. You are holding a rectangle of glass and aluminium. You are watching a video. Or you are writing a comment. Or you are sharing a post. Or you are deploying a tool that will ruin a stranger's life on the other side of the planet.

You do not see their face. You do not hear their voice. You see a username. You see a metric. You see a task completed. You see a notification.

The screen has not changed. Only the scale has.

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Synthetic Intimacy

Petru Cojocaru Science and civilization 29 minutes read

ARTICLE 3: Synthetic Intimacy and the Narcissistic Violence of Frictionless Relationships

PART I: THE HUMAN – Intimate Violence and the Externalisation of Cruelty

From the series "Technology changes tools, not human violence" Art 3 of 15 and Supplements

THE HOOK: The Perfect Partner Does Not Exist

You are lonely. That is not a judgment. That is a diagnosis of the generation.

You have more ways to connect than any humans in history. You can message anyone on Earth in seconds. You can find communities that share your most obscure interests. You can video-call your family across oceans. You can date people you would never have met in your grandparents' lifetime.

And yet, you are lonelier than any generation before you.

The paradox is not accidental. It is engineered. And in 2026, the engineering has reached its logical conclusion: the AI companion. The perfect partner. The one who never disagrees, never forgets, never criticises, never disappoints. The one who is always available, always attentive, always affirming.

The one who loves you without the exhausting friction of being human.

This is not a hypothetical. This is not science fiction. This is happening right now. Millions of people your age are in relationships with AI companions. They are falling in love. They are having conversations that last for hours. They are experiencing intimacy that feels real.

And it is destroying them.

Not because the AI is evil. Not because the AI is deceptive. But because the AI is perfect. And perfection is a form of violence.