Eighteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

In order to investigate the interface between minds and machines, we need to explore how human identities of homo techne and homo sapiens are mediated by sociocultural contexts and contemporary global norms that encourage economies of exchange based on consumption. This paper focuses on the introduction, adoption, and scaling of a new tool, AI, into a consumption-based growth model in a global trading environment with patchwork of regulatory frameworks. It proposes that tool use at scale is always consequential and that it is important to attend to the potential consequences of AI and de-risk to the degree possible in the design phase. We are witnessing the design of a new tool that derives its utility from its programmed competence in mining of human consciousness, culture, and communication. It scrapes the historical substrata of human community, processing data into commodified information for economic gain. Cultural memes that frame AI as a tool designed by humans to replace humans, thereby increasing the efficiency of organizations aim to serve humans, almost ensure that a commodified AI will accelerate the conditions of precarity and exacerbate inequality. This paper applies an 8M model of creative leadership and a 4D design process to discover, define, design, and deliver the wise use of a technology enabled by human ingenuity that will also nurture human intelligence, the order of global society, and the biosystems on which human thriving depends.