In the contemporary sociopolitical context, very few concepts are as relevant and evolving as biopolitics. The conceptual contours of biopolitics focus on how modern states exercise power not only through laws and coercion, but by managing life itself, regulating populations, human health, and human values. Biopolitics examines how knowledge systems and power relations are restructuring the governance of populations. Today, developments in the technological landscape, such as artificial intelligence and quantum technology, are reshaping how life is governed, evaluated, and defined. At its core, biopolitics is concerned with the administration and management of populations. States rely on data such as mortality rates, health indicators, and productivity levels to regulate society. The logic of data optimisation and measurement is central to governance. However, the encapsulation of AI-mediated social reality within data-based decision-making is accelerating changes in the social fabric.

The implications are far-reaching. Artificial intelligence-based systems assist governments in areas such as health, predictive policing, border control, and welfare distribution, as technology assumes an unprecedented position in the contemporary sociopolitical milieu. These systems do not simply process information; they actively shape political decisions about who is protected, who is monitored, and who is excluded. In that sense, AI-mediated social reality does not replace biopolitics; it intensifies it.

One of the most striking features of biopolitical governance can be found in migration policies. Contemporary states increasingly differentiate between ‘valuable’ and ‘less valuable’ human lives based on economic criteria. As seen in the legal systems of some European states, highly skilled migrants are welcomed as contributors to economic growth, while low- or unskilled workers face strict control under exclusionary frameworks. This reflects a neoliberal logic in which individuals are evaluated as human capital, and their worth is determined by productivity and economic potential. Artificial intelligence can amplify this logic of ‘bifurcation’ through automated classification. AI can access migrants’ data, predict economic contribution, and flag risks, thereby reinforcing hierarchical distinctions between populations. What was once a political judgement is increasingly becoming a technical process. Yet AI-driven data is not neutral; it may reproduce biases, deepen inequalities, and obscure accountability behind a veneer of objectivity.

Beyond migration, AI is also reshaping the dynamics of security. Surveillance technologies, enhanced by machine learning, allow states to monitor behavioural patterns within populations. This is what scholars describe as the “biopolitics of security”, where the goal is not only to respond to danger but to anticipate and prevent it.

This logic of predictive models raises critical ethical and political questions. Who defines risk? What validates these models? What happens when individuals are judged not by what they have done, but by what an algorithm predicts they might do? Perhaps more troubling is the convergence with what Michel Foucault identified as the ultimate paradox of biopolitics: the power to ‘take life or let live’. Originally linked to nuclear weapons and genetic engineering, this concept captures the capacity to threaten human survival. Today, the delegation of life-and-death decisions, from autonomous weapons systems to AI-driven warfare, represents a profound transformation in political power.

In healthcare, AI can improve diagnostics, treatment plans, and outbreak prediction. In environmental policy, it can model climate change and guide sustainable strategies. These applications align with the biopolitical goal of fostering life and improving well-being. Yet they also reinforce data-driven governance, where human life is measured and quantified through digital systems.

The integration of AI into contemporary society reveals a fundamental tension within biopolitics. On one hand, it offers powerful tools to improve human life and address global challenges. On the other, it deepens inequalities, concentrates power in the hands of states and multinational corporations, and risks reducing populations to data points. This tension is evident in the concept of governmentality, where individuals are governed not only through external forces but through internalised norms and self-regulation. In the age of AI, governmentality takes a new form. Individuals are encouraged to optimise themselves by tracking health and behaviour through digital platforms, reshaping subjectivity itself and influencing how they interact with society. The result is a form of digital biopolitics in which power operates through algorithms, data, and self-regulation.

The intersection of biopolitics and artificial intelligence forces a fundamental question: what does it mean to govern life in platform societies? As technology advances, so too must our understanding of responsibility, power, and human dignity. The future of biopolitics will not be determined by algorithms alone, but by the choices societies make about how to use them. As Michel Foucault observed in 1976, “sovereignty and discipline… are absolutely constitutive components of the general mechanisms of power in our society.”

Zaid Bin InamThe writer is an academician and faculty member at NUML.

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