Call for Papers

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) across its social, political, economic, scientific, educational, and cultural contexts brings benefits but also poses risks to society through the “algorithmisation” of life. Among its benefits are the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, prediction of problems arising from climate change, digitisation and speed in obtaining information from registries and documents, as well as acceleration of genetic mapping and analysis; among its damaging effects are problems in data collection and use, the “algorithmisation” of work and education, the use of algorithms to spread misinformation and influence political decisions and electoral processes, privacy, algorithmic discrimination and division in social relations, and the double environmental impact, sometimes contributing to solving and preventing problems, sometimes contributing to environmental degradation through excessive consumption of drinking water, use of mineral resources and emission of toxic gases. These positive and negative impacts of AI, whose main element is the algorithm, encompass the global North and South from different perspectives and contexts, in that, despite significant advances in the global South, the North dominates AI infrastructure and development, with the exception of China. This dominance is responsible for digital exclusion, discriminatory algorithmic standardisation, the deepening of political and economic control of the global South, as well as social inequalities. Based on the differences and similarities between the global South and North in terms of the impacts of AI use and algorithmic influence, this meeting aims to provide interdisciplinary debates through the confluence of different areas of knowledge, raising questions and intertwining ideas to rethink the present and future of humanity under the integration and possible algorithmic dominance of Big Tech. To this end, we accept papers on the following themes, as well as other topics that may not be listed but that refer to the content of the event:

1. AI governance in the global North and South
2. Discriminatory algorithms: social networks and generative AI
3. Impacts of AI on education: the ‘algorithmisation’ of learning
4. Human rights, social justice and AI
5. AI and democracy: impacts of pre- and post-election “algorithmisation”
6. Mind and machine: challenges of AI
7. Ethics and AI systems
8. AI and robotics: art, work and social relations
9. AI, environmental challenges and social impacts: perspectives and cooperation between the global North and South?
10. Digital exclusion
11. Big Tech and digital colonialism
12. Social networks and gender violence
 

Target audience: students, researchers, teachers and the general academic and non-academic community interested in discussing the impacts of algorithms and AI on social relations.

Deadline for abstract submission: 30 October 2025. Proposals for papers may be co-authored. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words and should be submitted in doc (or docx) and pdf format. Link for paper submission here.