Revista Princípios’s call for submissions — Issue 172

Revista Princípios’s call for submissions — Issue 172

 

SPECIAL ISSUE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND NEW DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES: A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

 

Princípios (ISSN: 1415-7888; E-ISSN: 2675-6609), a scientific journal on theory, politics and culture classified by Capes as A3 in Qualis Periódicos (2017-2020), makes public the call for articles for the thematic dossier entitled “A critical perspective at artificial intelligence and new disruptive technologies”, organised by professors Olival Freire Júnior (UFBA), Cristhiano Duarte (Chapman University), Cristiano Capovilla (UFMA) and Hugo Valadares (UTFPR/Ibict), with estimated publication scheduled for April 2025.

There seems to be a consensus: the future is now! We live in a brave new world! From the most basic human needs to the most ephemeral: what we eat, where we live, how we prevent diseases, what techniques should be used in food production’s chain, how we care for those who need special attention, what are the most efficient means of transportation, how we anticipate the so-called ‘natural disasters’, where we communicate, what information is shared, how information is produced and stored, what should be monitored and surveilled for security reasons, what is the new viral video, what is the latest movie recommended by the platform, what podcast we should listen to and, most importantly, where we should listen to it. There seems to be no facet of human interaction that escapes the impact caused by the latest technological leaps. With each new disruptive technology, we see the notions of time, space and memory being wholly reformulated, new social relationships being forged, and the end of work once again announced. But... is that really the case?

Let’s consider, for example, the very text of this call for submission. At the moment, it is virtually impossible to be one hundred per cent sure whether what you are reading has not been automatically generated by a commercial chatbot from a large Californian artificial intelligence company. The request to create the text could have come from an author sitting comfortably in an Uber on the way to an airport in Europe, from a cell phone assembled in China — but sold at a golden price, a golden apple price in Brazil. The data containing the request (‘write a call for proposals for a political journal’) is transferred to the company via a high-speed 5G+ network. The text is processed in a cluster of computers from another big tech company miles away from there — it is impossible to know whether it is in Texas, Virginia, Washington or California itself. The algorithm developed after years of research finishes processing, it outputs a formal call for proposals, and the text leaves the warehouse of ultra-cooled computers (computers use energy and produce an enormous amount of heat, right?) and continues on its way back to the cell phone that generated the request.

The final result is spell-checked and emailed to the magazine’s editor — more data, another big tech, another cluster, same old story. The chatbot, the ride-hailing app, the high-speed network, the algorithm, the spell-checker, all work like magic, but behind the witchcraft lies a world of exploitation, plunder, and devastation that is often forgotten. The Uber driver is already on her tenth hour of work, the company that assembles luxury cell phones was forced to install safety nets under its windows to prevent workers from committing suicide, the cluster’s microprocessors contain minerals taken from Chile or Brazil by a mining company from the global north… the list is endless. But, curiously, the harbingers of the end of manual work continue to sound their trumpets.

Wichcraftery and fetishes aside, the history of many disruptive technological advances is not entirely new and tends to be cumulative. That is true even for the so-called ‘industrial revolution’. It is impossible to imagine the construction of a heat engine without first mastering the production of heat and fire. Similarly, it is impossible to imagine the operation of a steam train without first going through the many iron foundry techniques — developed over several Years — that allowed long iron bars to be moulded and transformed into train tracks — not to mention the invention of the wheel itself. Without appealing to technological determinisms, disruptive advances tend to echo the past of other equally disruptive advances. But what causes the feeling that we are experiencing the heyday of technology in its most impactful and disruptive facet, if not the ideological envelope that has permeated science and technology since modernity?

The undeniable truth is that much of the contemporary world lives within a particular institutionalised social order. An order in which virtually all goods and services are produced for and obtained from the market. A system in which both those who produce and those who appropriate the surplus of others' labour depend entirely on the market for their survival and social reproduction. This historically constructed market imperative is not construed without profound social scars. We live in a system where competition and endless accumulation are the watchwords. Systematic technological advances within a capitalist society should, therefore, be seen as concrete representations of the laws of motion and social property relations of that social order — particularly of the competitive facet and real war they give rise to. Perhaps the most significant proof of this exploitation is the increase in psychological problems that grow at the same rate as technical advances in the world of work. It is quite likely that what has been conventionally called disruptive is more linked to the organisation of production within the capitalist order than to the ‘technological’ products of this particular mode of production.

But what about societies organised under other social-property relations and, therefore, obeying other laws of motion? Profound changes have characterised the economies of countries guided by the socialist model in the last decade. As authors such as Elias Jabbour articulate, the Chinese experience plays a leading role in this process and has even inspired reforms carried out in other countries. There is clearly a relationship between the role of the national technological innovation system that has strengthened in recent years — with so-called disruptive innovations (5G, big data, artificial intelligence, among others) — and the emergence of new forms of economic planning in the country. This opens up a wide range of theoretical problems regarding the relationships between technological development and new forms of societal organisation. An expanded concept of ‘new technologies’ compels us to reflect not only on the specificities of the Chinese case, but also on new forms of governance, new forms of planning, new forms of production and, consequently, new forms of social organisation.

Deciphering these issues and others not addressed here will represent an essential contribution to the quiver of historical materialism. In the debate on technology, it is evident that economic, political, social and cultural issues are intertwined. From this perspective, the Revista Princípios proposes a critical analysis of artificial intelligence and the so-called new and disruptive technologies; from the most diverse perspectives and interdisciplinary standpoints. We expect research contributions and critical reflections on the following structuring topics:

• A historical materialist analysis of the concept of technology and disruptive technological advances, both in the work of Marx and other authors;
• The impact of disruptive technologies on relations of production, on the regime of accumulation and regulation of capital, and on labour value;
• The relations between technology and the labour market. New forms of exploitation in ‘platform capitalism’; the algorithm as a new time clock;
• Hegemony and disruptive technologies. Algorithms, social networks, and the construction of narratives in a connected world;
• Epistemological bases and theoretical frontiers. Philosophical and sociological concepts that can support and contribute to the renewal of the notion of technology — not only as a concrete expression of capitalist competition;
• New forms of governance and digital socialism. Technology in the structuring of post-capitalist social orders;
• State financing models: their potential and their limitations. How ‘projectment societies’ achieved technological success in the midst of the capitalist universe and possible limits to this expansion;
• Technology for whom? Smart cities; the role of technology in the prevention and monitoring of natural disasters; technological deserts;
• Technological paraphernalia and mental illness: new technologies and old forms of exploitation.
• The role of technological mastery in the centre-periphery relationship and in the transition to a multipolar world;
• The future of artificial intelligence in Brazil. Assessments of public policies and the Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Plan.

 

The topics listed do not exclude other proposals for the special issue. Given the scope of the theme, alternative proposals are welcome, especially if original.

To compose the other sections of the publication, the journal will also accept contributions of articles, essays and reviews on other topics not directly related to the theme of the special issue. Reach out to the editorial team if you wish to contribute.

Contributions must consist of original and unpublished texts, written in Portuguese or translated into that language with the authorization of their authors, and that comply with the journal's standards (check our website). Contributions must be submitted to the electronic address: https://revistaprincipios.emnuvens.com.br/principios/about/submissions no later than February 10, 2025.

 

São Paulo, SP, Brazil, october 3, 2024.

 

Princípios’ Editorial Board