Somya Joshi – Resource Frontiers of AI

“Could AI ever be a common pool of resources?”

Researcher Somya Joshi makes a compelling observation: the same extractive narratives of 19th century industrialisation are being reproduced today in our venture to conquer the AI ecosystem. Somya highlights how major technological shifts such as the Green Revolution relied on the premise that automation would always lead to progress, and the myth around this pattern persists in the case of AI.

Somya reminds us that following the major revolutions seen in history, power eventually remained in the hands of the elites. In parallel, other authors have discussed the “unequal geographies and distributive effects” in the extraction and manufacturing stages involved with progress and technology. The footprint of labour has traditionally been made invisible in the process, and the same now applies to the footprint of materials such as water, copper and silicon, mainly sourced in the Global South. 

Somya calls for the normative act of imagining equity to ensure a sustainable and more just future by seeing AI as a common resource for global use.