New book unpacks the global politics of AI tech transformation

Public debate on artificial intelligence (AI) features a vocal battle between upbeat hopes for prosperity and global equality versus more alarming visions of massive job losses, increasing inequality, and an unparalleled concentration of wealth and power. Skepticism towards such grand narratives about a seemingly universal global AI transformation (for better or worse) is apt for at least four reasons: they downplay the role of political agency of states and institutions in navigating technological innovation and its effects; they obscure the powerful role of discourses and tech imaginaries in mobilizing regulatory, fiscal and other politico-economic action; they nourish and are themselves fed by an intensifying geopolitical race to AI among a few global superpowers and their superrich tech business elites who display little consideration for the wellbeing of most people on this planet; and they are particularly inattentive to the unevenness of AI-fication processes within and between sectors, workplaces, or countries across the globe.

In their new book “The AI Matrix: Profits, Power, Politics” Daniel Mügge (University of Amsterdam), GOV professor Regine Paul, and Vali Stan (University College London) introduce a conceptual-analytical compass for navigating the complex global political economy of AI transformations. Inspired by critical political economy, Science and Technology Studies, and economic geography, they argue that while an overarching beam of extraction, exploitation, and concentration (with the US and China as epicenters) unites experiences of AI development and deployment across the globe, its refraction through the prism of variable institutional settings, tech-related discourses, geopolitical maneuvers, but also local agency and resistance yields various specific, yet also connected, articulations of global AI transformations. The book deliberately seeks to cross over from academic into public debate, offering a “well-researched guide to help us cut through hype and hysteria and understand the high stakes gambles around AI” (endorsement by Financial Times columnist Marietje Schaake). Regine acknowledges generous open access funding from the UiB Library Fund, rendering a wide reach possible.