This special issue of Carthaginensia, entitled “The Economic Agent as the Protagonist of History: When Artificial Intelligence Became God,” emerges at a time of profound technological transformation. In a context in which artificial intelligence (AI) not only optimizes processes but also begins to generate its own narratives and systems of belief, this editorial project seeks to restore the economic agent as the true protagonist of history, recovering the ethical and transcendent dimensions of human action in the face of contemporary reductionist approaches.

This special issue is presented as a corrective to the denaturalization of economics, advocating instead for a science grounded in human responsibility. Through the contributions gathered in this volume, it is argued that economic problems ultimately arise from the neglect of the values that constitute the human person.

The human being is not merely an isolated individual driven exclusively by calculations of cost and benefit. Rather, this volume presents the human person as a relational, free, and responsible agent endowed with genuine creative capacity—a capacity that ought to be recognized as the true driving force of economic life.