Andrea Dehlendorf

Listen to the interview here. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. OPENING JEREMIE GREER Hello, welcome. I’m Jeremie Greer, co-founder and co-executive director of Liberation in a Generation. LibGen is a national movement support organization that builds the power of people of color to transform the economy, who controls it, how it works, and most importantly, for whom.

Artificial intelligence is already shaping our work and daily life – but we have the power to decide whether the future will be a utopia or dystopia. Panelists Annalee Newitz and Andrea Dehlendorf discuss the impacts of AI on workers, who bears the burden of automation and job transformations, and how we can take control of our own technology. Moderated by Stephanie Bell, a fellow with Partnership on AI. Watch live on YouTube Annalee Newitz writes science fiction and nonfiction.

Daron Acemoglu is right that the future is not inevitable: AI developments reflect economic and political decisions that we have the power to change. But the problems go beyond the abstractions of democracy and liberty. Largely missing from his essay is an awareness of the way these developments affect the day-to-day life of workers in a highly unequal and racialized society. Any program of redirection must put these concerns front and center—and make workers’ rights a nonnegotiable priority.