Data Worlds: An Introduction

Abstract

This introductory article calls attention to the shift from the “big data” discourse of the 2000s to the current focus on “AI” in its supposedly “responsible” and “human-centered” forms. Such rhetoric helps deflect attention from the profitable and surveillant accumulation of data and the worrisome concentration of power in a handful of companies. Alert to this problematic political economy, the issue's editors engage recent theories of data capitalism and argue that attention to processes of datafication helps to elude the pitfalls of data positivism, data universalism, and unintentional criti-hype. As the authors touch upon each contribution to this special issue, they call for critical AI studies to forge an interdisciplinary community of practice, alert to ontological commitments, design justice principles, and spaces of dissensus.

Not ‘what’, but ‘where is creativity?’: towards a relational-materialist approach to generative AI

“…From this perspective, data itself does not generate value but functions as a means of production, while labour is still understood in the traditional sense as a "salaried" or "waged" relation. On the other hand, there are those who argue that algorithmic technologies and digital capitalism profit from an appropriation and enclosure of the commons (Arvidsson 2020; Bode and Goodlad 2023). In this sense, generative AI would produce value not only by exploiting waged labour, but by capturing the "general intellect" contained in the vast training datasets.…”