Who benefits from the rapid development of artificial intelligence, and who bears its costs? In its latest publication, The Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN), a Karibu partner, looks beyond the promises of technological progress to explore the implications of AI for people’s land, lives, livelihoods, and rights.
About the Asia Pacific Research Network
The Asia Pacific Research Network is a network of research organisations working alongside people’s movements and civil society organisations across Asia and the Pacific.
Through research, advocacy, and knowledge-sharing, the network supports struggles for people’s rights, genuine development, and social transformation. APRN connects research with grassroots movements, drawing attention to the structural causes of inequality, exploitation, and oppression.
Understanding and Resisting Pax Silica
AI and the New Frontiers of Imperialist Aggression: Understanding and Resisting Pax Silica, provides an overview and analysis on Pax Silica, a US-led initiative to secure global supply chains for artificial intelligence and advanced computing technologies.
Presented as a partnership for technological progress, economic security, and shared prosperity, Pax Silica brings together countries with different roles in the global AI supply chain, from critical mineral extraction and semiconductor manufacturing to data centres and software development.
But behind these promises lie important questions about power, control, and the future of technological development. Who will benefit from the expansion of AI, and what will it mean for the countries and communities providing the resources, infrastructure, and labour that make it possible?
The analysis places Pax Silica within a broader history of technological monopolies and economic arrangements, exploring how control over advanced technologies and critical supply chains can reinforce existing inequalities between countries.
A Global Assault on People’s Land, Lives, Livelihoods, and Rights
The development of AI depends on much more than algorithms and computer models. It relies on minerals extracted from the earth, enormous amounts of energy and water, and the labour of people across the world.
APRN explores some of the often-overlooked consequences of this rapidly expanding industry. From the destructive impacts of critical mineral mining on Indigenous territories and local communities to the growing demand for water and electricity from data centers, the environmental and social costs are becoming increasingly visible.
Something that is especially unkown to many in the West, is the hidden labour behind AI. Workers, many of them in the Global South, perform essential tasks such as labelling data, reviewing content, and training algorithms, often under extremely harsh working conditions, leaving many with stress, anxienty and mental health problems. At the same time, AI-driven automation raises concerns about unemployment and the future of work.
Beyond these economic and environmental consequences, the analysis addresses the growing use of AI in surveillance and warfare, as well as the implications of technological dependency for the sovereignty of nations and people.
Together, these issues raise a broader question: What does technological progress mean when the people whose land, labour, and resources sustain it have little control over its development?
The People’s Struggle Against Pax Silica
Across the world, communities and movements are coming together to challenge these developments, defend their rights, and build collective resistance.
Resistance is not about opposing technology itself, but challenging the systems of power that place technological development, natural resources, and economies under the control of imperialist interests and monopolies.
From communities resisting land grabbing and destructive mining to workers organising against exploitation and surveillance, the analysis highlights the importance of collective action and international solidarity.
At the core of the peoples struggle is a call for technological development that serves people’s welfare, dignity, and rights rather than profit.
Read APRN’s Full Analysis
AI and the New Frontiers of Imperialist Aggression: Understanding and Resisting Pax Silica offers a critical perspective on the political, economic, and social forces shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
We encourage readers to explore the full publication, including its examples of the impacts of Pax Silica and the struggles of communities resisting exploitation, and to learn more about APRN’s wider work with people’s movements across Asia and the Pacific.
Read the full publication: AI and the New Frontiers of Imperialist Aggression: Understanding and Resisting Pax Silica
Learn more about APRN: https://www.aprnet.org/