AI Matrix

Artificial intelligence (AI) is either heralded as a game-changer or as the harbinger of doom for humanity. But the AI transformation is not simply about new technology, but about who owns it, what they want to do with it, who can pay for it, and how other economic actors around the world - from legacy manufacturing firms in the Global North to farmers in the Global South - may have to adjust. The AI transformation bears all the hallmarks of global power structures and geopolitical struggles. This book navigates the reader through the variable terrain of (and issues with) AI transformations across the world and shows how they might be connected. It exposes the grand AI narratives as ammunition in political struggles over AI futures, and as a rhetorical diversion from ongoing struggles around existing and future socio-economic distribution and equality.