by PublicABCP
Translated and reviewed by Matheus Lucas Hebling
Edited by Sylvia Iasulaitis (UFSCar) and Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira (UFABC), the book Sociopolitical Studies of Artificial Intelligence (Estudos Sociopolíticos da Inteligência Artificial), published by the Editora da Universidade Estadual da Paraíba (EDUEPB — Paraíba State University Press), brings together texts that approach artificial intelligence from a critical, social-science-oriented perspective. The volume features contributions from researchers who seek to understand AI not merely as a technology, but as a social phenomenon with profound political implications.
The collection proceeds from the premise that artificial intelligence should be understood as a social agent that actively participates in shaping social, economic, and political relations. By treating AI as a nonhuman actor, the book adopts an approach that breaks with strictly technical or deterministic readings. Its central objective is to show how AI, once incorporated into digital platforms, security systems, public policy, and automated decision-making processes, directly affects everyday life and the organization of society.
This perspective underscores the importance of the social sciences in debates about technology, highlighting that algorithmic systems do not operate in the abstract but are shaped by interests, disputes, and historical contexts.
The chapters in the collection explore different dimensions of artificial intelligence, with particular attention to its effects on the organization of labor, mechanisms of surveillance, and the reproduction of inequalities. The volume also discusses the use of automated systems in public policy, the role of major digital platforms, and the regulatory challenges posed by the advance of AI.
By bringing these analyses together, the book makes clear how artificial intelligence systems not only reflect but also reinforce unequal social structures, affecting rights, access to information, and power dynamics.
The central proposal of the volume is to shift the debate on artificial intelligence from the technical sphere to the terrain of social and political disputes. By demonstrating that AI systems are neither neutral nor inevitable, the authors of the collection argue for the necessity of a critical approach that takes into account the conditions of production, the interests involved, and the concrete effects of these systems on different social groups.
In one of the chapters, Sérgio Amadeu and Rodolfo Avelino discuss the geopolitics of AI through an analysis of data center locations and the struggle for control over data.
Another study, by Deivison Faustino, Walter Lippold, and Helen Carolina Sarges, investigates the impacts of AI on the world of work, focusing on precarization and processes of data accumulation on a global scale. Also included are analyses of the use of facial recognition in public security policies, the impact of algorithmic racism, and the historical trajectory of AI up to the present day. These examples illustrate how the book articulates technical questions with concrete political and social disputes.
The book Sociopolitical Studies of Artificial Intelligence is available for free download from the website of the Editora da Universidade Estadual da Paraíba (EDUEPB). Aimed at social science researchers, students, and those interested in the political effects of technology, the volume offers a valuable contribution to deepening debates about AI in contexts marked by inequalities, power struggles, and accelerating digital transformations.
Editor Profiles
Sylvia Iasulaitis is a professor at the Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar — Federal University of São Carlos). She is a permanent faculty member of the Graduate Programs in Science, Technology, and Society and in Information Science, and serves as coordinator of the Social Sciences undergraduate program. She leads Interfaces — Núcleo de Estudos Sociopolíticos dos Algoritmos e da Inteligência Artificial (Interfaces — Research Group on the Sociopolitics of Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence), certified by the CNPq. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (UFSCar) and works in the fields of Computational Social Science and Social Data Science.
Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira holds a degree in Social Sciences (1989), a master’s degree (2000), and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Universidade de São Paulo (2005). He is an associate professor at the Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC — Federal University of ABC) and a member of the Deliberative Scientific Committee of the Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores em Cibercultura (ABCiber — Brazilian Association of Cyberculture Researchers).
PUBLICATION DETAILS
Title: Estudos Sociopolíticos da Inteligência Artificial (Sociopolitical Studies of Artificial Intelligence)
Editors: Sylvia Iasulaitis and Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira
Publisher: Editora EDUEPB
Year of Publication: 2025
ISBN: 978-65-5221-024-1
Available for free at: Editora da Universidade Estadual da Paraíba
