A radical paradigm shift in the way we think about AI and tech, taking hope and inspiration from the aspirational users of new technologies around the world.
When it comes to tech, the mainstream headlines are bleak: Algorithms control and oppress. AI will destroy democracy and our social fabric, and possibly even drive us to extinction. While legitimate concerns drive these fears, we need to equally account for the fact that tech affords young people something incredibly valuable—a rare space for self-actualization. In From Pessimism to Promise, award-winning author Payal Arora explains that, outside the West, where most of the world’s youth reside, there is a significant different outlook on tech: in fact, there is a contagion of optimism toward all things digital. These users, especially those in marginalized contexts, are full of hope for new tech.
As AI disrupts sectors across industries, education, and beyond, who better to shine the light forward, Arora argues, than the Global South, the navigator of all manner of forced disruptions, leapfrogging obstructive systems, norms, and practices to rapidly reinvent itself? Drawing on field insights in diverse global contexts such as Brazil, India, and Bangladesh, Payal describes what drives Gen Z to embrace new technologies. From Pessimism to Promise discusses the shift to relationally-driven approaches to design; how to create “algorithms of aspiration”; how to reimagine the digital space for sex, pleasure, and care; and, what we can learn from feminist digital activists and women’s collectives in the Global South on shared digital provenance and value, as well as indigenous approaches to sustainability, that challenges sacred ideas on degrowth, circular economy, and the doughnut economy. Arora also takes heart in the power in numbers, as the users from the majority world infuse algorithms with everyday aspirations, pushing for a new digital order.
Timely and urgent, From Pessimism to Promise makes a deeply compelling case that it is not naïve to be optimistic about our digital future. On the contrary, it is our moral imperative to design with hope.
Endorsements/
Charles Hayes, Executive Managing Director, Asia & Partner, IDEO‘ “This book is not a feel good, do good, symbolic appeal; it illustrates a rationally framed reality. The Global South, with its young and ambitious majority, approaches life with a “do more with less” mentality. I agree with the book’s framing of many of the challenges of our time as opportunities for responsible design. While highlighting what is problematic about Western tech’s current impact on the Global South, the book offers ways to design social solutions that can benefit all . . . From drones on African wildlife reserves to music sharing in the Middle East to pornography as education in India, this book provides context and direction for business leaders, digital creators, policymakers, and anyone else looking to realize a better future—a future that both benefits and is benefited by the Global South. Arora is at the top of my list when it comes to making sense of how to navigate many of these potential futures.”
Don Norman, Author of Design of Everyday things “Payal Arora’s brilliant book turns standard beliefs upside-down. Many people hold pessimistic views about the digital world, but not the youth outside of western culture: they find it uplifting and powerful.”
Arundhati Bhattacharya , Chairperson & CEO, Salesforce India “This book brings a fresh wave of optimism towards all things digital. I think the Global South, where most of the world’s youth resides, will provide the direction to how technology will emerge and shape the mankind’s future. Payal has done an excellent job in giving us a glimpse of a new digital order which is full of hope.”
In the Media/
Book covered in the Financial Times : The AI race is generating a dual reality
Payal Arora interviewed by re:publica Berlin Why it is not naive to imagine a positive digital future
3 Questions on what a positive digital future could look like with Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union.
Interview by Nicholas Barrett: Why are some countries more optimistic about AI than others?
Op-Eds/
Op-Ed from book in REVOLVE (award-winning magazine on sustainability) on Green Design Digital Inclusion Versus Planetary Good?
Commentary for SAGE Dialogues on Digital Society journal on ‘The privilege of pessimism: The politics of despair towards the digital and the moral imperative to hope’
Talks/
- Apr 15, 2024/ Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. Cambridge University UK
- Apr 25, 2024/ The Digital Society Conference, Utrecht NL
- May 22, 2024/ MindLabs. Tilburg University: NL
- May 28, 2024/ re:publica. Berlin: Germany
- June 13, 2024/ Critical Digital Infrastructures Festival, Deakin University. Melbourne: Australia
- June 17, 2024/ Society 5.0 Ethics, RMIT. Melbourne: Australia
- July 1, 2024/ University of Bonn, Desirable AI Group: Germany
- July 5, 2024/ Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences. NL
- Sept 23, 2024/ AI & Planet in a Crisis, Univ. of Vienna, Austria
- Sept 27, 2024/Betweter Festival, NL
- Oct 3, 2024/ EMERCE Fest, NL
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- Jan 16, 2025/ V2 Lab for the Unstable Media, NL
- March 24-27, 2025/ Comparative & International Education Society, Chicago
Payal Arora 