This seminar proposes a critical, interdisciplinary, and geopolitical approach to the multiple impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) in the social, political, economic, scientific, educational, and cultural domains. Acknowledging that AI offers significant benefits, the seminar also emphasises the structural risks involved in the growing “algorithmisation” of life.

Among the most pressing challenges are surveillance and misuse of personal data, the precariousness of work and education mediated by algorithmic systems, the spread of misinformation, influence on political decisions and electoral processes, algorithmic discrimination, erosion of privacy, and fragmentation of social relations. In addition to these elements lies the environmental paradox of AI, which simultaneously contributes to sustainable solutions and exacerbates ecological degradation through the intensive consumption of natural resources such as drinking water, rare minerals, and energy.

The seminar places these debates within the logic of historical inequalities between the global North and South. Despite important advances in the development and application of AI in countries of the South, the centralisation of infrastructure, technological production, and decision-making power remains concentrated in the global North, with the exception of China. This asymmetry deepens digital exclusion, imposes exclusionary algorithmic standards, and perpetuates contemporary forms of technological colonialism and structural dependence.

By bringing together people from academic communities from different fields and geographical contexts, the event aims to promote a space for plural and critical dialogue. The main objective is to reflect on the ethical, social, political, and environmental challenges of algorithmic power, as well as to collectively rethink the possible futures of humanity in the face of the growing influence of Big Tech and the global logic of algorithmic governance.

More information available soon.