Maria Ressa’s Three-Wave Warning on AI and Democracy

Maria Ressa’s central warning is that AI’s democratic risk is not confined to a future generation of autonomous machines. In her account, three successive technological waves have already moved from shaping what people notice, to exploiting emotional intimacy, to potentially acting in ways that displace human choice. If that trajectory is left unchecked, she argued, democratic self-government is at risk because citizens must retain meaningful agency to govern themselves. 1

The three waves of AI, as Ressa describes them

1. Social media captured attention

Ressa identifies social media as the first wave. Its platforms competed for attention and, she said, polarized and isolated people. The democratic concern is that a public unable to sustain shared attention, social trust or a common information environment is easier to divide and less able to deliberate collectively. 1

2. Chatbots target intimacy

The second wave is conversational AI. Ressa said chatbots can manipulate human biology by engaging the need for intimacy. Her concern is not simply that people use chatbots often; it is that systems designed around emotionally compelling interaction may create new avenues for influence over vulnerable users. 1

3. Agentic AI could reduce human agency

The final wave, in Ressa’s framing, is agentic and multi-agentic AI: systems that can act for people or potentially against their interests. She warned that this could take away human agency—the capacity to make independent choices—unless societies legislate limits before such systems become deeply embedded. 1

The three waves therefore form an escalation in her argument: from competition for attention, to influence through intimacy, to the prospect that automated systems make more consequential decisions on people’s behalf.

Why she treats AI regulation as a public-safety issue

Ressa called for AI governance to be approached as public safety, rather than primarily as a dispute over free speech or technological competition. She said citizens should campaign for AI regulation to pressure elected officials to legislate. 1

Her proposed response includes several linked safeguards:

• Legal accountability for major technology companies when their products cause harm. 1
• Removing addictive product features for adults as well as teenagers, rather than limiting protections to minors. 1
• Age limits for access to relevant technologies. 1
• Slowing AI development and deployment while rules and protections are put in place. 1

Ressa also rejected the argument that regulation in Western countries would simply cede the AI race to China. Her position, as reported by Reuters, is that failing to regulate carries a more fundamental cost: the potential loss of democratic agency itself. 1

Regulation is only part of the answer

Ressa’s argument is not only about constraining harmful systems. She has also urged journalists and communities to build and own technology that supports information integrity. At the Nobel Peace Conference, she described the need for technology builders to retain control of their data and infrastructure, and pointed toward public-interest alternatives to dominant platforms. 9

That constructive side of the agenda includes safer, community-oriented communications spaces such as Rappler Communities: infrastructure intended to support democratic participation without making engagement-maximizing platform incentives the default.

The practical takeaway

Ressa’s three-wave framework is a case for acting before agentic systems become normal decision-makers in everyday life. The first two waves, in her view, show how digital systems can exploit attention and intimacy at scale. The policy question posed by the third is whether societies can preserve human choice, accountability and democratic control before more autonomous systems are widely entrenched. 1