Photo showing Frederike Kaltheuner (DE) (Fund manager of the European AI Fund) at the "AI x Feudalism: Digital serfdom in the world of Big Data, between property rights, empowerment, and content control" Panel Talk at the Ars Electronica Festival 2021.

Guided by an invisible hand, the dissolution of commons in meatspace is pretty apparent. Less visibly but equally as contested are digital space territories where wars are waged every nanosecond to determine ownership of vast swatches of the data landscape. While feudal owners of digital space still perpetuate the lie of its capacity towards infinite growth, the fight against autocracy of the few especially grabby mega corporations continues.

AI x Feudalism looks at how artificial intelligence doesn’t just yoke individual data equity to the plough of the feudal machine, but how it inspires dissent, informed consent and a thirst for equality that, for once, leaves no-one behind.

Credit: tom mesic 2021