Artificial intelligence and the variegated reconfiguration of the global political economy

With the diffusion of artificial intelligence technologies (AITs) come grand narratives about their transformative effects in the political economy. Some claim these transformations to be good news, some as bad news, and yet others contend that AITs are simply the latest re-articulation of an entrenched—so no news at all. This debate is based on a faulty premise, however: arguing for or against an all-encompassing reconfiguration of national economies, let alone the global political economy, overshoots the analytical target. Instead, we build on critical political economy and economic geography to develop a more nuanced and precise account of variegated spatial and social relations under the “rise” of AITs. AITs, we argue, create significant transformations in contemporary capitalism, but not necessarily of it. As a novel heuristic, we propose to capture variegated AI-related transformations across two key dimensions of capitalist relations in the GPE—the organization of production and class relations—and for two key measures of reconfiguration (spatial and agential). With that heuristic, we find selective cross-spatial integration of data- and AIT-based production chains and value creation. This integration strengthens hierarchical relations among firms and countries, beneficial to a small number of them and detrimental to most others. At the same time, AIT diffusion promotes a disintegration of traditional class identities both globally and within countries. The net effect of increasing integration in the relations of production and disintegration in class relations is that both states’ capacity to intervene in markets and the room for intra-class solidarity shrink. Both dynamics damage citizens’ ability to organize collectively and effectively to promote their interests vis-à-vis entrenched economic interests.