This paper introduces the concept of process tyranny as a foundational category for analyzing contemporary AI-mediated and digitally governed societies. It argues that many forms of exclusion commonly attributed to algorithmic bias are more accurately understood as consequences of the normative architecture of procedures themselves. The central claim is that modern procedural systems—administrative platforms, educational interfaces, welfare infrastructures, and algorithmically mediated workplaces—do not merely regulate outcomes. They define the conditions under which participation, competence, and agency become recognizable. In doing so, they impose a specific model of cognition and temporality: linear, continuous, predictably responsive, and procedurally compliant. Process tyranny names the structural power that arises when conformity to procedural logic becomes a condition of legitimacy and when failure is interpreted as individual deficiency rather than as a mismatch between human cognition and institutional form. This form of domination operates infrastructurally, embedding normativity into workflows, interfaces, deadlines, and automated checks that are increasingly unavoidable. The paper situates this phenomenon within the history of bureaucratic rationalization and digital governance, arguing that artificial intelligence stabilizes and amplifies procedural normativity by reinforcing existing institutional expectations. Exclusion, on this account, is not accidental nor reducible to biased models, but produced by the design of participation itself. A key contribution is the articulation of cognitive normativity as a distinct ethical and political problem. By foregrounding cognitive variability—particularly in relation to attention, temporal discontinuity, and executive functioning—the paper shows how contemporary systems privilege a narrow conception of legitimate subjectivity while marginalizing others. Neurodivergence, especially ADHD, is treated not as an exception, but as an epistemic lens through which the limits of procedural systems become visible. Against dominant AI ethics frameworks focused on fairness and decision-making, the paper proposes a shift toward an ethics of participation and limits. It argues that AI technologies can function as legitimate cognitive prosthetics, enabling access within exclusionary systems rather than undermining epistemic integrity. Denying such tools, it contends, constitutes a form of structural injustice. By framing AI as cognitive infrastructure rather than mere automation, this work positions process tyranny as a foundational concept for future research in AI ethics, digital governance, political philosophy, and disability studies, reorienting the debate from isolated decisions to the deeper question of who is able to inhabit the systems that increasingly govern social life.
Tommaso Biagi (Sat,) studied this question.