Responsibility, care and repair in/of AI: Extinction threats and more-than-real worlds

Abstract

The recent statement of future (human) extinction by Artificial Intelligence (AI), made by the Center for AI Safety, crystallises techno-capitalists’ lack of care and responsibility for environmental and social harms that digital technologies already produce. Rather than identifying their collective roles and responsibilities in addressing these harms, the Center’s statement highlights future risks, and ties these to global extinction threats. There are, however, alternatives to such an approach, as articulated in research at the intersection of geographies of care and digital geographies, including that which is bringing together more-than-human and more-than-real approaches. While the software and hardware of AI continues to present amorphous challenges to the same techno-capitalists who benefit from them, we could instead prioritise care, repair and responsibility in/of AI to address current problems in this area.