On the juggernaut of artificial intelligence in organizations, research and society

Capitalizing on what we currently know about artificial intelligence (AI), the editorial of this special issue, entitled “Artificial Intelligence in the Spotlight”, adds our voice to a call to order in the face of the unbridled enthusiasm we often encounter regarding the benefits of AI. In short, we maintain that there is a crucial need for skepticism about the all-out colonization project vigorously pursued by AI and its sustaining infrastructure. We draw on our own analysis and that of the contributors to this special issue to consider what we see as a bold agenda for colonizing our communities, our ways of doing, and our minds – so that we become fundamentally dependent on technologies whose reliability is dubious and whose algorithms are secretly maintained behind the safety of corporate walls. Our thesis is that the cacophony of aberrations, disorder, and worries that emerge in the wake of AI can be meaningfully viewed as a juggernaut, an inexorable force that is ready to unsettle all things in its tedious path. The juggernaut metaphor constitutes our way of putting “artificial intelligence in the spotlight”. We call for researchers from all disciplines to engage in the study of the AI juggernaut and speak out as much as they can, in public and in academic spheres, about its dangers.