Author: Anita Gurumurthy

This is the first in a two-part series on the new AI economy, in openDemocracy.net. Published on March 3, 2020 . The views are of the individual author.

Voices of resistance to power are everywhere. Students and young people are taking to the streets; women are infiltrating public discourse; and the unlikely activist is joining popular uprisings. Social movements are rejecting tokenism and ‘woke-washing’ from corporations, demanding that governments deal with the alarming state of the planet’s health, and making place for feminist sensibilities, one struggle at a time.

All the ingredients for a seismic shift are here – well, almost.

There is still the half empty portion – and filling this is singularly about the business of ideas. And this, today, is in more than a bit of crisis, besotted as we are with the heady toys of a data culture that seems to overpower us.

In 1962, marine biologist and author Rachel Carson catalyzed the modern environmental movement with her epoch-making book 'Silent Spring' — a painstakingly crafted exposé of the pesticide industry. She highlighted the fragmentation, commodification, and erasure of truth in an era when narrow silos blind specialists to the interconnected whole of the planet and its natural ecosystems, where market forces sacrifice truth at the altar of revenue.

Read the full article here.

• AI
• Ethics
• Algorithmicjustice