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- ItemChina’s Deepening Infrastructural Capitalism: The Hard Landing of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Automated Technology(Weizenbaum Institute, 2024-12-05) Pun, NgaiThis paper explores the rise of China’s infrastructural capitalism, a stage of global capitalism marked by state-led infrastructure development and the advent of digital platforms. Drawing on political economy and cultural studies, the author frames the current artificial intelligence and big data race between China and the United States as a new Cold War driven not by ideology but by competing capitalist logics. China’s model is seen as a response rather than an alternative to the limits of neoliberal capitalism, merging extractive, industrial, and digital forms of capital. The paper emphasizes the contradictions inherent in this system, particularly the exploitation of labor and environmental degradation. At the center of the analysis lies the concept of the “infrastructural power of labor,” which highlights how various worker subjects (e.g., factory, logistics, platform, and data laborers) are both shaped by and shape infrastructural capitalism. The paper calls for renewed attention to labor struggles and solidarity in the face of growing precarity in the artificial intelligence and automation-driven economy.
- ItemLabor-atories of Digital Economies: Latin America as a Site of Struggles and Experimentation(Weizenbaum Institute, 2025-04-24 00:00:00) Grohmann, RafaelThis article argues that the digital labor developments and struggles are labor-atories of digital economies, with special focus in Latin America. This means that, on the one hand, capital is experimenting and updating forms of control and exploitation - through the long trajectory of informality and dependency and, on the other hand, workers are trying and experimenting forms of organizing and collectivities, also updating Latin American rich histories of organizing, solidarity economies and community technologies. The emphasis on “labor” means that these laboratories are products of class struggles and capital-labor relationships. The paper unpacks the argument with four short insights from ongoing research: 1) Latin America as not only of research site; 2) The updating of informality in the Latin American AI context; 3) Global implications of data work, AI value chains, and the cultural sector; 4) Digital solidarity economies as a Latin American response to the current digital labor scenario, including digital sovereignty and autonomy.
- ItemIDLEWiSE. A Project Concept for AI-Assisted Energy Efficiency in HPC Clusters(Weizenbaum Institute, 2025-03-10) Bassini, Chiara Fusar; Hackel, Leonard; Kirschbaum, ThorrenThe growing energy demand for high-performance computing (HPC) systems raises severe concerns about their environmental impact. Novel system paradigms and computational schemes are needed to limit energy consumption while ensuring the efficiency and availability of computing resources. In this contribution, we introduce a concept for an Intelligent Decision Tool for Lowering Energy Waste in System Efficiency (IDLEWiSE), which aims to decrease the energy consumption of HPC clusters operating below total capacity by selectively shutting down idle computational units. This paper outlines an optimization tool using efficient machine-learning algorithms like decision trees to learn optimal shutdown policies online. We further locate our approach in the context of existing energy-economizing instruments and perform a strategic analysis and stepwise validation of the proposed concept. The study also includes qualitative anonymized findings from a survey of German scientific HPC cluster administrators, corroborating the urgent need for energy-efficient tools and practices for practitioners.
- ItemThe Digipolitical and African Political Thought: A Theoretical Framework for Interpreting the Political in the Digital Age(Weizenbaum Institute, 2025-01-16) Favarato, ClaudiaToday, digitality is pervasive across all spheres of human social and political life. To inquire into digital-engendered ontologies, this paper presents a theoretical framework undergirding African political thought for the study of the political sphere in digitality, or the digipolitical. This neologism refers to the political as an ontological category redefined via its intersection with the digital. This understanding rests on three premises: the characteristics of the digital, a sui generis virtual reality; the algorithmic architecture of the cyber socio-political space; and the onto-relational nature of the political subjects, which entails the interplay of the analogue with digital-humans. Regarding more recent disciplines and theories, such as posthumanism, this paper brings to the fore insights offered by African political thought, which has long emphasized reading individuals, communities, and structures of power through the lens of the political centered on the concept of relationality. I defend the assertion that the relational approach inscribed in African political philosophies offers valuable insight into digital political onto-relationalities, as it discloses power from in-between spaces and details its dynamics.
- ItemTrapped in the Matrix: Algorithmic Control and Worker Dispossession in the African Platform Economy(Weizenbaum Institute, 2024-12-11) Dinika, Adio-Adet TichafaraDigital labor platforms are reshaping the work landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa, promising enhanced productivity and empowerment. Yet, this study reveals a more complex reality, particularly in Rwanda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Based on 41 in-depth interviews, it exposes how algorithmic management systems deeply erode worker autonomy, highlighting significant financial, task, and behavioral dispossession. This research, grounded in neo-Marxist and postcolonial theories, scrutinizes the nuanced limitations of autonomy and the pervasive control exerted by algorithmic management, reflecting the lived experiences of workers. The findings illuminate enduring patterns of accumulation that echo historical exploitation, maintaining asymmetric power dynamics and dependence. Despite this, the study captures the agency of workers as they navigate and resist these systemic constraints, challenging the dominant techno-optimistic narrative. It underscores the critical need for contextually informed empirical research to shape policies that champion equity and elevate marginalized voices during transformative economic shifts.