Resistance is futile?!

In Star Trek, the Borg say “Resistance is futile” just before they assimilate others into their own order. It should sound dystopian. Today, we encounter the same logic in a friendlier vocabulary: change is inevitable. Companies have to act. Employees have to adapt. Anyone who hesitates will fall behind.

The difference is mostly the wording. No one has to say that resistance is pointless if everyone is already convinced that the future is fixed anyway. Then the introduction of AI is no longer seen as an economic or political decision, but as something that simply happens. Providers sell. Companies invest. Leadership decides. And those who have to live with the consequences are then told how important openness, retraining, and adaptability are.

At the same time, AI is often described as “just a tool.” That does not fit well. A tool is an option. Something inevitable is not. If a technology is presented as both optional and unavoidable, it is worth asking who actually benefits from that framing.

Luise Freese speaks about how concrete interests become a story about progress and why language such as “future-proof,” “adapt or fall behind,” or “the AI revolution is here” does more than describe technological change. It shifts the debate. Suddenly, those who are meant to explain why certain systems should be introduced everywhere are no longer the ones who have to justify themselves. The burden of explanation falls on those who doubt it.

Resistance is futile?! therefore raises an uncomfortably simple question: When did we start treating decisions made by people, decisions that benefit some much more than others, as if they were natural laws?