The Danger of Smart Ideologies: Counter-Hegemonic Intelligence and Antagonistic Machines

This chapter will attempt to critically reframe the debate on the relationship of AI and humans by highlighting the often-overlooked ways AI reproduces dominant ideologies. This form of “smart hegemony” goes beyond merely challenging the all too human prejudices reproduced by AI around race and gender. Rather, it draws attention to the ways AI is used to fundamentally reproduce and reinforce dominant ideological assumptions of the world - particularly linked to capitalism. Yet this chapter will also seek to provide a glimpse at the more radical counter-hegemonic possibilities of “trans-human relations”. To this end, its goal is to politically resituate the discourses around AI so that they can be part of movements to challenge often naturalised values and offer the potential for creating new emancipatory alternative ones. As such, it proposes the need for “counter-hegemonic intelligence” and the rise of “antagonistic machines”.