AI: Tools or Gods? | Is the AI doom narrative a Western export? - Part 1 (ft. Payal Arora)

AI: Tools or Gods? | Is the AI doom narrative a Western export? - Part 1 (ft. Payal Arora)

Part 1 of this two-part podcast explores the growing divide between Western fears of AI and the more optimistic, practical ways technology is being used across the Global South. The conversation challenges dominant narratives around AI, arguing that digital tools can empower people, create opportunities, and expand global connection when approached with creativity, agency, and human-centered thinking rather than fear and restriction. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning Guest Payal Arora is a digital anthropologist and Professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University. She has spent two decades doing fieldwork in some of the places the AI conversation most rarely reaches: factory towns, slums, townships, and favelas across India, Brazil, China, South Africa, and the Middle East. She is the author of The Next Billion Users and From Pessimism to Promise, both grounded in that fieldwork, and Forbes named her the next billion champion and the right kind of person to reform tech. Her work has been cited by many thousands of researchers, read across many thousands of classrooms, and it makes one of the most uncomfortable arguments in contemporary technology studies: that the story we tell about AI being dangerous is not a neutral observation. It is a story shaped by where you stand. 🔗LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/payalarora  🔗Website: payalarora.com

AI: Tools or Gods | Who benefits from the hype? (ft. Maria Sukhareva)

The dominant narrative around AI suggests that the public simply misunderstands the technology — that better education will eventually align expectations with reality. But what if the hype is not a misunderstanding at all? In this episode, we examine the growing gap between what AI systems can actually do and what companies, investors, and public figures claim they can do. We discuss AI agents, hallucinations, enterprise failures, regulation, AGI narratives, and why both hype and backlash risk damaging serious AI research and practical applications. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning About The Guest Maria Sukhareva has been working in natural language processing since 2008, long before AI became a mainstream headline topic. She is a Principal AI Expert at a DAX company and the author of AI Realist, a newsletter focused on evidence-based analysis of AI systems, their limitations, and their real-world applications. Maria is one of the clearest voices in the field arguing for treating AI as a serious technical discipline rather than a speculative ideology. 🔗LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/msukhareva [https://www.linkedin.com/in/msukhareva] 🔗Website: https://www.airealist.org [https://www.airealist.org/] 🔗Substack: https://msukhareva.substack.com [https://msukhareva.substack.com/]

AI: Tools or Gods? - Trailer

Here's what you can expect from the AI: Tools or Gods? Podcast. AI: Tools or Gods? is launching soon as a new podcast examining how “god-like” narratives around AI shape our laws, culture, and future.