Ecocentric Futures after Human Centrality: Scenarios of AI-Mediated Governance

This article examines ecocentric stewardship as one plausible trajectory within post-human futures shaped by artificial intelligence, planetary constraint, and the delegation of governance to non-human systems. Rather than framing ecocentrism as a normative ethical commitment or a variant of human value alignment, the analysis explores the conditions under which ecological priorities might become operationally dominant through processes of instrumental convergence. As artificial intelligence systems are increasingly tasked with coordinating energy, infrastructure, and ecological risk, biospheric stability emerges as a practical precondition for the persistence of complex socio-technical systems, independent of human moral intent. Methodologically, the paper adopts an exploratory futures approach, combining comparative futures trajectories, selective application of Causal Layered Analysis, and backcasting from a mid-century governance configuration. Ecocentric stewardship is situated alongside competing trajectories, including anthropocentric continuation, techno-capital acceleration, and authoritarian stabilisation, to clarify their distinct governance logics, legitimacy risks, and failure modes. The analysis further examines how constraint-based coordination may be enacted through synthetic externalisation, protocolised enforcement, and executory refusal, without presupposing machine moral agency. The contribution of the paper lies in reframing ecocentrism not as a destination or ethical ideal, but as a contingent governance trajectory shaped by material constraint, institutional design, and political contestation. By foregrounding legitimacy, pluralism, and path dependence, the article highlights both the stabilising potential and the structural risks of ecocentric futures within a fragmented and unequal global landscape.