Mapping Empires by Kate Crawford

The current phase of artificial intelligence is often described as a rupture, as fundamentally new. But what if it is a redrawing of historical patterns? Drawing on her research into the genealogies of technology and power over centuries, Crawford situates today's AI within a much older story. Following the imperial pathways of power since 1500, her talk explores how the systems today echo earlier histories of colonialism, militarization, and automation. Frontier models are no longer treated merely as products but as strategic assets and instruments of statecraft, subject to the logics of sovereignty and control. The geopolitics of AI are the latest instantiation of an older imperial grammar, where knowledge production is grounded in extraction, classification, and dominion.