The Global Reformation Revisited: Artificial Intelligence, Authority, and Cycles of Legitimacy in the Twenty-First Century

This article conceptualizes the contemporary rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as a long-term socio-technical transformation embedded within recurring historical cycles of authority and legitimacy. Drawing on social studies of technology, political economy, and comparative social theory, specifically classical Islamic historiography, it argues that AI has emerged as a new social institution exercising interpretive authority. By 2026, empirical evidence from global AI investment flows and "Sovereign AI" initiatives in the Global South demonstrates that governance is moving away from claims of universal technological convergence toward a pluralistic global order. The article reframes this fragmentation as a historically consistent response to over-centralization. Understanding AI through this cyclical lens offers a more realistic foundation for sustainable governance in a post-universal digital landscape.