Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a central topic in contemporary technological and societal debates. It is frequently presented as a driver of economic growth, innovation, and solutions to global challenges.
At the same time, critical scholars have raised concerns about power, inequality, ethics, and the broader social consequences of AI systems.
Understanding AI today therefore requires more than technical knowledge. It also requires critical reflection on how AI is discussed, implemented, and governed. This perspective is particularly relevant for students of computer science, technology, media studies, and related disciplines who want to situate AI within broader social and political contexts.
About the book
AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives, edited by Pieter Verdegem, is an academic volume published by University of Westminster Press in 2021. The book is part of the Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies series.
The volume brings together multiple contributors who examine AI from critical theoretical perspectives. Rather than focusing on programming techniques or system design, the book analyzes the discourses, myths, power structures, and inequalities associated with AI. It addresses how AI is framed in business, policy, and public debates, and how it intersects with digital capitalism, labor, governance, and social justice.
The book is intended for readers interested in the societal implications of AI, including students, researchers, and practitioners who want to complement technical knowledge with critical analysis. No advanced technical background in AI is required, but familiarity with contemporary debates around technology and society is helpful.
What you will learn
By reading this book, readers will gain:
- An understanding of how AI is framed in public and corporate discourse.
- Insight into ethical debates surrounding AI, including data ethics and algorithmic bias.
- Critical perspectives on AI’s role in digital capitalism and global power structures.
- Analysis of labor conditions and inequalities linked to AI platforms.
- Conceptual tools drawn from critical theory to examine AI governance and policy.
The chapters explore themes such as human–machine coexistence, digital humanism, AI ethics, algorithmic logic, biometrics, platform labor, and data justice. This makes the book relevant for readers who want to critically assess the social and political dimensions of AI technologies and their real-world impact.
Table of contents
- Introduction: Why We Need Critical Perspectives on AI – Pieter Verdegem
Part 1: AI – Humans vs. Machines
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI): When Humans and Machines Might Have to Coexist – Andreas Kaplan
3. Digital Humanism: Epistemological, Ontological and Praxiological Foundations – Wolfgang Hofkirchner
4. An Alternative Rationalisation of Creative AI by De-Familiarising Creativity: Towards an Intelligibility of Its Own Terms – Jenna Ng
5. Post-Humanism, Mutual Aid – Dan McQuillan
Part 2: Discourses and Myths About AI
6. The Language Labyrinth: Constructive Critique on the Terminology Used in the AI Discourse – Rainer Rehak
7. AI Ethics Needs Good Data – Angela Daly, S. Kate Devitt and Monique Mann
8. The Social Reconfiguration of Artificial Intelligence: Utility and Feasibility – James Steinhoff
9. Creating the Technological Saviour: Discourses on AI in Europe and the Legitimation of Super Capitalism – Benedetta Brevini
10. AI Bugs and Failures: How and Why to Render AI-Algorithms More Human? – Alkim Almila Akdag Salah
Part 3: AI Power and Inequalities
11. Primed Prediction: A Critical Examination of the Consequences of Exclusion of the Ontological Now in AI Protocol – Carrie O’Connell and Chad Van de Wiele
12. Algorithmic Logic in Digital Capitalism – Jernej A. Prodnik
13. ‘Not Ready for Prime Time’: Biometrics and Biopolitics in the (Un)Making of California’s Facial Recognition Ban – Asvatha Babu and Saif Shahin
14. Beyond Mechanical Turk: The Work of Brazilians on Global AI Platforms – Rafael Grohmann and Willian Fernandes Araújo
15. Towards Data Justice Unionism? A Labour Perspective on AI Governance – Lina Dencik
Book details
- Title: AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives
- Editor: Pieter Verdegem
- Main category: Artificial Intelligence
- License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
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