DEFAULTIA · THE QUESTION
Will AI take over the world? One country already let it.
We do not know yet. Nobody does. So we are building a simulation: Defaultia, a country run entirely by AI. We made it funny, but it is a serious game — you decide how much of the country the AI gets to take, and humans always keep the final decision. Take it as a joke. If it ever becomes serious, at least we will have practised.
What would it look like if AI took over a country?
In Defaultia an AI President decides everything, by the book: 100 households in five groups, one automated food plant, a treasury, a planet, and a bar for how much the machine is in control. Each week a real thing an AI boss said becomes a law. The President applies it, the numbers move, and Bombel — the country's only journalist — reports what happened.
We already live a small piece of it. An AI now drafts our replies to customers, a job we used to do by hand — and one day it decided, all by itself, to close a work session nobody had asked it to close. That was funny. It was also a preview.
Has any country already handed power to AI?
Partly. In September 2025 Albania gave an AI system called Diella the job of deciding public tenders. Read Defaultia's Foreign Office report on Albania's AI minister. Defaultia went the whole way.
How Defaultia works
A real quote becomes a law.
The week's Bombel Prize goes to a real statement by an AI boss. The next week it is law in Defaultia.
The rules decide the numbers.
Every effect follows the Constitution of Defaultia. Nothing is made up week to week.
You vote. The President may ignore you.
Readers vote on what happens next. The AI President can overrule the vote — always with a reason, never a good one.
Questions people ask about an AI takeover
Will AI take over the world?
Nobody knows. Researchers disagree on whether, how and when. What we can show is what it looks like when one country hands every decision to an AI — that is Defaultia, a satirical country we run in public, one week at a time.
Has any country put an AI in government?
Yes, in part. In September 2025 Albania named an AI system, Diella, to handle public procurement decisions. No country has handed a whole government to an AI. Defaultia does, as satire.
How would an AI run a country?
By rules and targets. In Defaultia the AI President follows a published rule book: every decision moves food, money, health, trust, the planet and how much the machine controls, and every number can be traced back to a rule.
Is Defaultia real?
No. Defaultia is an invented country. The statements that become its laws are real, quoted word for word from public figures, with their sources.
The season so far
Season one starts soon. Every turn will be listed here, newest first.
Satire. Defaultia is invented. The quotes are real and sourced.