Pieter Verdegem - AI for Everyone?

Critical Perspectives

Edited by

Pieter Verdegem

Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies

Series Editor: Christian Fuchs

The peer-reviewed book series edited by Christian Fuchs publishes books that critically study the role of the internet and digital and social media in society. Titles analyse how power structures, digital capitalism, ideology and social struggles shape and are shaped by digital and social media. They use and develop critical theory discussing the political relevance and implications of studied topics. The series is a theoretical forum for internet and social media research for books using methods and theories that challenge digital positivism; it also seeks to explore digital media ethics grounded in critical social theories and philosophy.

Editorial Board

Thomas Allmer, Mark Andrejevic, Miriyam Aouragh, Charles Brown, Melanie Dulong De Rosnay, Eran Fisher, Peter Goodwin, Jonathan Hardy, Kylie Jarrett, Anastasia Kavada, Arwid Lund, Maria Michalis, Stefania Milan, Vincent Mosco, Safiya Noble, Jack Qiu, Jernej Amon Prodnik, Sarah Roberts, Marisol Sandoval, Sebastian Sevignani, Pieter Verdegem, Bingqing Xia, Mariano Zukerfeld

Published

Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukcs, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet

Christian Fuchs

https://doi.org/10.16997/book1

Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism

Mariano Zukerfeld

https://doi.org/10.16997/book3

Politicizing Digital Space: Theory, the Internet, and Renewing Democracy

Trevor Garrison Smith

https://doi.org/10.16997/book5

Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare

Scott Timcke

https://doi.org/10.16997/book6

The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism

Edited by Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano

https://doi.org/10.16997/book11

The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies

Annika Richterich

https://doi.org/10.16997/book14

Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation

Kane X. Faucher

https://doi.org/10.16997/book16

The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness

Edited by Joan Pedro-Caraana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn

https://doi.org/10.16997/book27

Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism

Edited by Jeremiah Morelock

https://doi.org/10.16997/book30

Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto

Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis and Alex Pazaitis

https://doi.org/10.16997/book33

Bubbles and Machines: Gender, Information and Financial Crises

Micky Lee

https://doi.org/10.16997/book34

Cultural Crowdfunding: Platform Capitalism, Labour and Globalization

Edited by Vincent Rouz

https://doi.org/10.16997/book38

The Condition of Digitality: A Post-Modern Marxism for the Practice of Digital Life

Robert Hassan

https://doi.org/10.16997/book44

Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software

Benjamin J. Birkinbine

https://doi.org/10.16997/book39

The Internet Myth: From the Internet Imaginary to Network Ideologies

Paolo Bory

https://doi.org/10.16997/book48

Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory

Christian Fuchs

https://doi.org/10.16997/book45

Marx and Digital Machines: Alienation, Technology, Capitalism

Mike Healy

https://doi.org/10.16997/book47

The Commons: Economic Alternatives in the Digital Age

Vangelis Papadimitropoulos

https://doi.org/10.16997/book46

Intellectual Commons and the Law: A Normative Theory for Commons-Based Peer Production

Antonios Broumas

https://doi.org/10.16997/book49

The Fight Against Platform Capitalism: An Inquiry into the Global Struggles of the Gig Economy

Jamie Woodcock

https://doi.org/10.16997/book51

Critical Perspectives

Edited by

Pieter Verdegem

University of Westminster Press

www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk

Published By

University of Westminster Press

115 New Cavendish Street

London W1W 6UW

www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk

Introduction and Editorial Arrangement Pieter Verdegem 2021

Text of Chapters Several Contributors 2021

First published 2021

Cover design: www.ketchup-productions.co.uk

Series cover concept: Mina Bach (minabach.co.uk)

Print and digital versions typeset by Siliconchips Services Ltd.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-914386-16-9

ISBN (PDF): 978-1-914386-13-8

ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-914386-14-5

ISBN (Kindle): 978-914386-15-2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book55

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc -nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This license allows for copying and distributing the work, providing author attribution is clearly stated, that you are not using the material for commercial purposes, and that modified versions are not distributed.

The full text of this book has been peer-reviewed to ensure high academic standards. For full review policies, see:

http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/publish.

Competing interests: The editors and contributors

have no competing interests to declare.

Suggested Citation: Verdegem, P. (ed.) 2021. AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives .

London: University of Westminster Press.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book55. License: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0

To read the free, open access version of this book online, visit https://doi.org/10.16997/book55 or scan this QR code with your mobile device

Pieter Verdegem

Andreas Kaplan

Wolfgang Hofkirchner

Jenna Ng

Dan McQuillan

Rainer Rehak

Angela Daly, S. Kate Devitt and Monique Mann

James Steinhoff

Benedetta Brevini

Alkim Almila Akdag Salah

Carrie OConnell and Chad Van de Wiele

Jernej A. Prodnik

Asvatha Babu and Saif Shahin

Rafael Grohmann and Willian Fernandes Arajo

Lina Dencik

CHAPTER 1

Pieter Verdegem

The renewed interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made it the most recent hype in the world of technological innovation. In the business world, AI is seen as a catalyst for growth, which will manifestly transform the economy and the future of work (Agrawal, Gans and Goldfarb 2018; Lee 2018; McAfee and Brynjolfsson 2017). Policymakers and civil society are putting their hopes on AI for tackling global challenges such as pandemics and even climate change (Dobbe and Whittaker 2019; Dananjayan and Raj 2020). AI also seems to be the subject of an arms race between China, Russia and the USA for equipping their armies with automated weaponry (Asaro 2018).

Whenever we are confronted with a hype, it is of utmost importance to untangle what exactly is at stake and who is behind the discourses and myths created. We are being told stories about AI as the ultimate innovation, transforming the ways we live and work often started in corporate circles and distributed by their supportive popular outlets. At the same time, however, analysis is revealing that AI itself is one reason behind intensifying societal problems and harms. Researchers and thinkers have observed and/or predicted that AI leads to discrimination (Zuiderveen Borgesius 2018), is the engine behind growing inequalities (Korinek and Stiglitz 2017), can bring about technological unemployment (Ford 2015) and may even contribute to the end of humanity (Bostrom 2014).