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Artificial intelligence (AI) is heralded as a revolutionary force in the global economy. But the transformation it brings is not simply about new technology as a driver of change. It is about who owns it, what they want to do with it, who can pay for it, and how other economic actors around the world – from legacy manufacturing firms in the Global North to farmers in the Global South – must adjust.
This book explores AI systems as products of unequal and conflictual power relations. It exposes grand AI narratives as rhetorical ammunition in political fights over tech futures and socio-economic distribution. Tech giants leverage infrastructure and data to cement their global dominance. Meanwhile, geopolitical competition between China and the United States increasingly dominates the AI economy, entrenching globe-spanning dependencies. The AI Matrix is an essential guide to the real-world economic dynamics that AI unleashes.
This book cuts through the hype surrounding artificial intelligence to reveal how profit motives, distorted tech narratives and geopolitical competition shape its evolution. Exposing common blind spots in public discourse, it challenges the myth of lab-driven innovation and technological imperatives, offering a powerful lens on the interplay between political and corporate power. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand who truly benefits from the AI revolution and who bears its costs.
1. Beyond the hype: a global political economy view of AI
2. AI’s deep roots and many forms
3. American AI and the Chinese challenge
4. Uneven effects across and within sectors
5. Uneven effects on labour
6. Uneven effects in the rest of the world
7. AI futures seen through a global political economy lens