Automating the world, Governing Life
Contemporary Debates on Artificial Intelligence and Power from an Ethical and Latin-American Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35362/issn.1850-0013-1056Keywords:
artificial intelligence, ethics, political economy, subjectivity, digitalityAbstract
This article addresses the main ethical-political problems associated with the development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, situating them within the broader framework of the digitalization of life experience and its effects on the production of contemporary subjectivities. From a critical political philosophy perspective, it examines the tensions between the technological promises of AI and its concrete effects in unequal social contexts. The article is organized in three parts. Firstly, it discusses the main recent theoretical approaches to AI from technocritical, techno-optimistic, Marxist and post-humanist perspectives. Secondly, the specific problems arising from the implementation of these systems are analyzed, especially algorithmic bias, new forms of surveillance and data mining, and effects on subjectification. Finally, current debates around AI governance are presented, highlighting both global agendas and emerging discussions in Latin America. In the conclusions, we propose overcoming technophobic and solutionist positions, and recovering the idea of “techno-diversity” (Hui, 2021) as a possible horizon for thinking about technological developments that are situated, heterogeneous and attentive to regional specificities.
Downloads
References
Álvarez Álvarez, A., Arroyo Prieto, L., Avila Pinto, R., Crusellas Tura, E., Vázquez, M., Martínez Portell, L., Mata i Solsona, M., Ruiz de Alda, T., Ruiz Costa-Jussà, M. & Torras Genís, C. (2022). Datos abiertos y la inteligencia artificial. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya.
Ávila, R., Brun, L., Bull, B., Cecchini, S., Costafreda, A., Rivera, L., Peirano, M., Sanahuja, J. & Svampa, M. (2023). La triple transición. Visiones cruzadas desde Latinoamérica y la Unión Europea. Madrid: Fundación Carolina & Oxfam Intermón.
Belli, L. & Zingales, N. (2022). Data protection and artificial intelligence inequalities and regulations in Latin America. Computer Law & Security Review, 47, 105761. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2022.105761.
Benkler, Y. (2006), The Wealth of Networks: how social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bratton, B. H. (2021). The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World. Londres & Nueva York: Verso Books.
Brynjolfsson, E. & McAfee, A. (2014). The Second Machine Age. Nueva York: W. W. Norton.
Bonilla, Y. & Martínez, G. (2021). Tecnologías comunitarias y soberanía digital: experiencias desde América Latina. Comunicación y Sociedad, 38(1), 1-24.
Burrell, J. (2016). How the machine ‘thinks’: Understanding opacity in machine learning algorithms. Big Data & Society, 3(1), 1–12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715622512.
Cancela, E. (2024). Utopías digitales. Imaginar el fin del capitalismo. Buenos Aires: Prometeo.
CEPAL (2022). El futuro del trabajo en América Latina y el Caribe en el contexto de la digitalización y la automatización. Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe. Recuperado de: https://www.cepal.org.
Coeckelbergh, M. (2020). AI Ethics. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Cortina, A. (2024). ¿Ética o ideología de la inteligencia artificial? Madrid: Tecnos.
Costanza-Chock, S. (2020). Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. Yale: Yale University Press.
Danesi, C. (2025). Lo que dicen los primeros estudios sobre las relaciones de los humanos con los chats de IA: pueden aliviar la soledad, pero también aislar y generar dependencia. El País, 1 de abril. Recuperado de: https://elpais.com/tecnologia/2025-04-01/lo-quedicen-los-primeros-estudios-sobre-las-relaciones-de-los-humanos-con-los-chats-de-iapueden-aliviar-la-soledad-pero-tambien-aislar-y-generar-dependencia.html.
de Sousa Santos, B. (2017). Justicia entre saberes: Epistemologías del Sur contra el epistemicidio. Madrid: Morata.
D’Ignazio, C. & Klein, L. (2020). Data Feminism. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Dyer-Witheford, N. (2015). Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex. Londres: Pluto Press.
Dyer-Witheford, N., Kjøsen, A. N. & Steinhoff, J. (2024). Poder inhumano. Inteligencia artificial y el futuro del capitalismo. Buenos Aires: Prometeo.
Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. Nueva York: St. Martin’s Press.
Floridi, L., Cowls, J., Beltrametti, M., Chatila, R., Chazerand, P., Dignum, V., Luetge, Ch., Madelin, R., Pagallo, U., Rossi, F., Schafer, B., Valcke, P. & Vayena, E. (2018). AI4People. An Ethical Framework for a Good AI Society: Opportunities, Risks, Principles, and Recommendations. Minds and Machines, 28, 689-707.
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of Justice. Nueva York: Columbia University Press.
Fuster Morell, M. (2020). The Commons as a Digital Public Infrastructure: Governance Design for an Alternative Internet. P2P Models Project. Recuperado de: https://p2pmodels.eu.
García Serrano, A. (2016). Inteligencia Artificial, fundamentos práctica y aplicaciones. RC.
Gray, M. L. & Suri, S. (2019). Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Green, B. & Chen, Y. (2019). Disparate interactions: An algorithm-in-the-loop analysis of fairness in risk assessments. Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (pp. 90-99). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3287560.3287573.
Harding, S. (2015). Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hui, Y. (2021). Art and Cosmotechnics. Mineápolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Katz, R. (2021). Transformación digital y brechas estructurales en América Latina. Fundación Telefónica.
Krauss, P. (2023). Künstliche Intelligenz und Hirnforschung. Neuronale Netze, Deep Learning und die Zukunft der Kognition. Springer.
Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Nueva York: Penguin.
Kwet, M. (2019). Digital colonialism: US empire and the new imperialism in the Global South. Race y Class, 60(4), 3-26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396818823172.
Lupton, D. (2016). The quantified self: A sociology of self-tracking. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Mejías, U. A. & Couldry, N. (2019). Colonialismo de datos: repensando la relación de los datos masivos con el sujeto contemporáneo. Virtualis, 10(18), 78-97. Recuperado de: https://www.revistavirtualis.mx/index.php/virtualis/article/view/289.
Mohamed, S., Png, M. T. & Isaac, W. (2020). Decolonial AI: Decolonial Theory as Sociotechnical Foresight in Artificial Intelligence. Philosophy & Technology, 33, 659-684. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00405-8.
Mol, A. (2008). The Logic of Care: Health and the Problem of Patient Choice. Routledge.
Moor, J. H. (1985). What is Computer Ethics? Metaphilosophy, 16(4), 266-275.
Morozov, E. (2013). To Save Everything, Click Here. Nueva York: PublicAffairs.
Morozov, E. (2022). It’s the Tech, Stupid: On the Political Economy of Digital Capitalism. Londres & Nueva York: Verso Books.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. Nueva York: New York University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479833641.001.0001.
Pasquale, F. (2015). The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Pasquinelli, M. & Joler, V. (2021). El Nooscopio de manifiesto. La Fuga, 25. Recuperado de: http://2016.lafuga.cl/el-nooscopio-de-manifiesto/1053.
Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017). Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds. Mineápolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ricaurte, P. (2019). Data Epistemologies, The Coloniality of Power, and Resistance. Television & New Media, 20(4), 350-365. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419831640.
Rouvroy, A. & Berns, T. (2013). Gouvernementalité algorithmique et perspectives d’émancipation. Le disparate comme condition d’individuation par la relation? Réseaux, 177, 1/2013, 163-196.
Schneider, S. (2019). Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Serrano, M. & Peletier, I. (2024). En qué piensan los robots. Guía definitiva para entender la disrupción que viene. Madrid: Editorial Tecnología y Sociedad.
Suchman, L. (2011). Anthropological Relocations and the Limits of Design. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, 1-18.
Torres, J. (2023). La inteligencia artificial explicada a los humanos. Barcelona: Plataforma Actual.
Spitzer, M. (2023). Künstliche Intelligenz. Dem Menschen überlegen wie künstliche Intlligenz uns rettet und bedroht. Droemer.
Schwarz, A. (2020). Data colonialism and algorithmic capitalism: New territories of extraction and control. Media, Culture & Society, 42(6), 855-872. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443719876541.
Susskind, J. (2018). Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
UNESCO (2021). Recomendación sobre la ética de la inteligencia artificial. Recuperado de: https://bit.ly/4j85WTr.
Veraza Urtuzuástegui, J. (2024). Karl Marx, la inteligencia artificial y el gobierno despótico de la producción. México: Editorial Crítica.
Xun, J. (2025). “Hipnocracia” o el régimen de la sociedad adormecida con dos sumos “sacerdotes”: Trump y Musk. El País, 26 de marzo. Recuperado de: https://elpais.com/tecnologia/2025-03-26/hipnocracia-o-el-regimen-de-la-sociedad-adormecida-condos-sumos-sacerdotes-trump-y-musk.html.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Nueva York: PublicAffairs.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 CC Attribution 4.0
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All CTS's issues and academic articles are under a CC-BY license.
Since 2007, CTS has provided open and free access to all its contents, including the complete archive of its quarterly edition and the different products presented in its electronic platform. This decision is based on the belief that offering free access to published materials helps to build a greater and better exchange of knowledge.
In turn, for the quarterly edition, CTS allows institutional and thematic repositories, as well as personal web pages, to self-archive articles in their post-print or editorial version, immediately after the publication of the final version of each issue and under the condition that a link to the original source will be incorporated into the self-archive.
