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⚠️ AI Inevitability: Who Is the Future Really For?

NewBits Digest feature image for article on AI inevitability, highlighting Tressie McMillan Cottom’s warning that “inevitable AI” narratives are tools of power.

🧠 What’s Being Said


Renowned sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom is issuing a stark warning: the dominant narratives about artificial intelligence aren’t neutral predictions — they’re tools of power.


Speaking at a recent panel, Cottom argued that much of the hype around an “inevitable AI future” reflects the anxiety of wealthy elites about maintaining control, not a settled technological destiny.


“This promise of an artificial intelligence future is really just a collective anxiety that very wealthy, powerful people have about how well they’re going to be able to control us in the future.”

According to Cottom, framing AI’s rise as unavoidable encourages public resignation — allowing outcomes that primarily benefit the rich to quietly become reality.


🧩 Key Ideas


  • 🏗️ AI inevitability is not inevitable — it is shaped by policy, economics, and public consent


  • 💰 Those with capital and compute set the narrative, often positioning AI as destiny rather than choice


  • 🧍‍♂️ A “post-human” future risks treating large segments of humanity as less than human


  • ✋ Refusal is power — rejecting inevitability opens space for more just outcomes


Cottom draws historical parallels to systems like chattel slavery, once framed as unavoidable, to argue that inevitability narratives often serve entrenched power.


⭐ Why This Is Important


  • 🔹 Narratives Shape Outcomes

    When people believe the future is already decided, they stop contesting it. That surrender is often what makes unequal futures real.


  • 🔹 AI Governance Is a Human Choice

    This moment isn’t about what AI can do — it’s about who decides how it’s used, who benefits, and who bears the cost.


  • 🔹 Ethics Can’t Be an Afterthought

    As AI systems scale into labor, education, surveillance, and governance, questions of dignity, agency, and fairness move from theory to daily life.


  • 🔹 Hope Through Agency

    Cottom’s message is not anti-technology — it’s pro-human. She frames refusal not as resistance, but as the most hopeful act available.


🧠 What AI inevitability really means


At the heart of Cottom’s argument is that AI inevitability is a story people tell — and stories can be rewritten when the public refuses to accept inevitability as truth.


🧭 Bottom Line


The future shaped by AI is not prewritten. It will be determined by who participates, who pushes back, and who refuses to accept AI inevitability as inevitable.



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