AI Without Bosses

Course Description

As AI reshapes economies and reorders public life, the dominant paradigm barrels ahead, pursuing scale and control above all else. More energy, more proprietary data centers—no brakes. As infrastructure consolidates, tech oligarchs drift rightward, shaping data monopolies, state power, and labor conditions. Growth erodes worker rights, algorithmic accountability, and ecological care, deepening AI’s harm to marginalized communities. Rather than accepting this trajectory as inevitable, this course explores alternative ownership models for AI. We examine how cooperative principles and solidarity economy values can disrupt AI’s extractive model, envisioning alternatives like shared data, public digital infrastructure—including cooperative data centers—and democratic oversight. This course runs alongside the Cooperative AI Conference, co-convened by the instructor, with cooperative leaders, AI scholars, and technologists from the event appearing as guest speakers. Participants will carry forward these ideas—sparking conversations and envisioning bold, cooperative futures.