A Ruthless Critique of AI in the Academy

Join in a panel discussion of the effects and political impact of AI in our work.

Keynote speaker

The University and scholarly pursuits led by Dr Jathan Sadowski (Monash University)

Panel

• Associate Professor Katharina Ruckstuhl, Otago Business School, Te Maea Network, University of Otago
• Dr Brendon Woodford, School of Computing, University of Otago
• Dr Olivier Jutel, Communication Studies, University of Otago

An internationally renowned author and technology academic will bring a ‘ruthless’ critique of AI and its role in the modern world to New Zealand in December for a speaking tour that will visit three cities.

Jathan Sadowski is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and author of the book Too Smart, about the political economy of technology. He also hosts the long-running weekly technology podcast This Machine Kills.

Sadowski’s new book, The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism is due for international release in January 2025. Jathan’s series of talks in three New Zealand cities: Wellington, Dunedin and Auckland – will take place in the first week of December. They will include a 35-minute keynote address, discussing “the pressing issues of AI and labour, higher-education, the rhetoric of adaptation, the politics of tech procurement, and the political economy of AI.”

The keynote will be followed by a panel discussion by local academics and commentators with knowledge and expertise on AI ’s impact in New Zealand.

“In 2021, science fiction writer Ted Chiang observed that most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against us,” says Sadowski. “The sudden boom of interest in artificial intelligence—driven by torrents of cash and threats to transform society from top to bottom—has clarified this relationship between technology and capitalism even further,” he says. “People are more aware than ever of the power dynamics that drive systems like AI . It is now common to see sceptical inquiry about how technologies are made, who decides their purpose, who uses them, and who are they used against?” Sadowski says the impacts of AI are no longer merely abstract or distant concerns, with the ecological, economic, and human costs all increasingly material and immediate.

His talk will outline three key concepts that are crucial for a political economic analysis—and a ruthless criticism—of AI and capitalism:

1. Innovation realism
2. Cheap data
3. The perpetual value machine