Artificial intelligence and inequality

In this chapter I consider the way in which ‘artificial intelligence’ emerged and developed as a research field, a turning point being the mid-1950s. In its initial stages, the development of programs for chessplaying machines proved important because playing chess requires intelligent strategy and action. Early efforts led, more slowly than expected, to specialised artificial intelligence, although from only the 2010s one can speak of artificial general intelligence. The key technical dimensions, which have led to intelligent machines – namely algorithms, artificial neural networks and machine learning – are explicitly considered. After covering two fundamental aspects, those being the early development of ICTs and the overall supply chain necessary to keep the whole infrastructure of artificial intelligence going, the inequality issue is considered. Regarding the latter, even though it is too soon to have a reliable measure of the impact of artificial intelligence on the economy and society, a few dimensions are hinted at, such as the divide which is emerging in the labour market, the presence of gender and racial biases and the amplification of political inequality.