As artificial intelligence becomes embedded within critical infrastructures, including transportation systems, energy grids, food supply chains, and communication networks, these systems are increasingly operating as interconnected, adaptive environments capable of autonomous coordination and decision-making. This project examines how the growing autonomy of critical infrastructure may reshape legal responsibility, cybersecurity risk, and responsible AI governance as societies move toward the year 2050 and beyond. It focuses on how public power and human agency are transformed when essential services are mediated by intelligent systems that function beyond continuous human oversight.

At the intersection of law, cybersecurity, responsible AI, and critical infrastructure protection, the project analyzes how infrastructure-level autonomy introduces new governance challenges. These include diffuse accountability, reduced transparency, and heightened exposure to systemic and cascading failures, including cyber-enabled disruption. As autonomous infrastructures optimize for resilience, efficiency, and stability through algorithmic coordination, established legal concepts such as duty of care, institutional liability, and democratic oversight may no longer align with the loci of decision-making embedded within these systems.

Rather than advancing immediate regulatory prescriptions, the project adopts a forward-looking and conceptual approach to assess long-term societal consequences. It explores how legal frameworks, cybersecurity governance models, and responsible AI principles may need to evolve to preserve meaningful human agency, public trust, and rights-based accountability in environments where infrastructures transition from passive technical assets to semi-autonomous participants in governance. Through conceptual analysis and scenario-based exploration, the project aims to contribute to emerging debates on how societies can maintain legitimacy and human-centered control as intelligent infrastructures increasingly shape collective life.