The challenges of our AI epoch can be addressed only by strengthening human capabilities for both critical thinking and compassion. Yet, a spate of studies from across the world suggests that the applications of AI have led to higher vulnerability for the marginalized, alienation of young people, and, in general, a decline in cognitive abilities. Numerous articles have raised concerns about the unethical and extreme consequences of people’s relationships with AI bots and about AI agents that take over human autonomy. The economy powering AI dystopia is not just profiteering wildly. It is stripping society of historical memory, institutional authority, and social sensibility.
For those who feel that “the AI epoch is here and we can do nothing but accept it”, Neil Postman’s fifth law of technology – that ‘technology becomes mythic’ is a warning. Unless social institutions retain the sovereign right to determine their futures, the current configuration of techno-social design–monopolized by Big Tech corporations–is bound to hurt future generations. The ‘export data, import AI’ paradigm takes us back to the ‘export cotton, import cloth’ era that impoverished India, a colony of the British. The new paradigm is not merely one of squeezing the AI colonies economically, but also politically. It is a new enslavement nudged algorithmically through trade deals and political bargains based on self-interest of the powerful.
What brings hope in this context is that civic movements, especially in the Global South, are forging new imaginaries and remaking the social contract. From platform workers’ unions, public interest technologists, elected local governments, public system functionaries, feminist communities, and ecological warriors to indigenous peoples, critical enclaves of new techno-visions and -practices are emerging as the infrastructures of hope. They show us how a pluralistic and radical future is possible in alternative imaginations; new choices, norms and protocols that create models for stewardship with legitimacy from below.
Governance institutions need to take a cue from these winds of change. However, as design thinker, Indy Johar, reflects, we are living through an “institutional interregnum—a transitional period between industrial theories of governance and the emergent possibilities of future governance architectures”. The processes of system-wide change need a radical reset; but political institutions seem to be yet ill-equipped to negotiate this onerous task. At IT for Change, we believe that we must play our part in stewarding the present to visibilize alternatives, to nudge governance structures towards adaptive, contextually-grounded, participatory futures.
In 2024-25, under the umbrella of the Global Digital Justice Forum–the coalition we co-founded in 2023, we articulated the contours of digital justice in the UN Global Digital Compact negotiations, and launched a successful global campaign against the Tech Broligrachy. We continued to deepen collaborations with a wide community of actors to redefine decent work standards for algorithmic workplaces. We joined hands with coalitions to advocate for fair digital economies, working from global to local levels. We took evidence-based analysis on gender-dimensions of the gig economy to the Beijing+30 process. And we conceptualized and implemented a range of capacity-building programs for civil society; notably, the second edition of our Frames and Frontiers Institute on the history of digitalization and global justice.
Our research came up with concrete recommendations on how to shape digital public infrastructure for maximizing public value; design AI innovation ecosystems for substantive equality; and build labor platforms and data cooperatives led by workers. We strengthened our model-building initiatives on teacher-led public ed-tech, incorporating decentralized AI in India’s government school system (focusing on foundational language learning), media labs with adolescent girls, and Internet-enabled civic literacy centers for rural women’s collectives.
The year has also been invaluable for the time and space that our team has been able to create with care and dedication to build our internal processes. We continue on this journey to seek coherence between our internal architecture and external actions–to move with openness and conviction, resilience and tenacity, navigating the necessary dualities of an uncertain and complex world.
We thank all of you who stand with us in solidarity, and invite you to engage with the story of our change-making in the year that was.
- Directors, IT for Change