Artificial intelligence is being built at an extraordinary pace. But by whom, and for whom? As AI systems increasingly shape how people work, think, and are governed, the world has quietly slipped into treating citizens as consumers: recipients of decisions made elsewhere, rather than participants in making them.
Citizen 5.0 confronts this shift directly. David Galipeau argues that the defining question of the AI era is not technological. It is human. Will citizens have a genuine seat in decisions that determine the future of labor, data, and cognition? Or will that future be decided unilaterally by a handful of technology companies?
Drawing on rigorous, interdisciplinary research, the book builds a concrete framework for restoring citizens, not consumers, to the center of the AI era. It includes neurorights, data sovereignty, and a Synthetic Labor Tax that could reshape who owns the value AI creates. This is a precise, urgent case for reclaiming human agency before the future is built without us.