Who is afraid of Artificial Intelligence? Reflections from the Economic Margin

Abstract

The paper discusses how different streams of thought in economics might be affected by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that advances the last years. The approach taken is that of a heterodox economist, with a background in other disciplines, who works on rather marginal fields of economics, like heterodox finance and parallel currencies, feminist, ecological and solidarity economics, along with monetary history and grassroots economics. The study uses the experience gained through empirical research of various types where the data are gathered by the researcher herself (discourse analysis, field research with ethnographic methods, surveys, mapping, archival research, analysis of popular culture) in order to discuss how AI is challenged by, rather than challenging, entire fields of economics. To the contrary, it has been the model of dissociated inquiry, which predominantly serves capitalist patriarchal agendas through the economic discipline as a mainstream dogma, that made the discipline vulnerable to AI problematic uses. Therefore, AI became a mirror of and for economics. It reveals the need to bring forward pluralist perspectives about the economy and to link economic knowledge to the complexities of real life.