Pessimism Is a Privilege
Reclaiming
Tech Optimism in an Unequal AI World. Payal Arora in Conversation with Sagal Hussein.
This Talk will be held in English and is part of the conference series Critical AI, curated
by Ramón Reichert, Department of Cultural Studies.
In the West, AI is increasingly framed through fear, regret,
and apocalypse. Once celebrated as progress, technology is now met with what I call pessimism paralysis – a luxury of those
who can afford to opt out.
Drawing on her latest book From Pessimism to Promise, Payal Arora argues that tech optimism
is not naïve but rational. For communities confronting inequality, climate risk, corruption, and invisibility, AI is a practical
tool for survival, creativity, and self-determination. From hyperlocal flood alerts and community health diagnostics to gender-safety
systems and refugee storytelling, AI is being shaped as a collaborator, not a saviour. Reclaiming tech optimism does not deny
harm – itexpands possibility. The future of AI will not be defined by how fast it scales, but by how well it listens.
Payal Arora is a Professor at Utrecht University and founder of the Inclusive AI Lab. She is an acclaimed
digital anthropologist, with two decades of user-experiences in the Global South. She is an award-winning author of several
books including “The Next Billion Users (Harvard) and ‘From Pessimism to Promise’ (MIT). She has been listed in the 100 Brilliant
Women in AI Ethics 2025 and won the 2025 Women in AI Benelux Award for her work on Diversifying AI. Forbes called her the
‘next billion champion’ and the ‘right kind of person to reform tech.’ 250+ international media outlets have covered her work
including the Financial Times, Wired, and The Economist. She has consulted for the public and the private sector including
UNHCR, Spotify, KPMG, Adobe, IDEO, Google, and GE and sits on several boards including for UN EGOV, and LIRNE-Asia. She has
given 350+ keynotes and invited talks in 85 countries for events such as Copenhagen Tech Festival, re:publica, and COP26,
and TEDx talks on the future of the internet and innovation. She is a Harvard and Columbia University, and Rockefeller Bellagio
Resident Fellow alumni, and currently lives in Amsterdam.
Sagal Hussein (she/her) is a researcher in the field
of International Political Economy and Political Ecology, with a particular focus on Eco-Marxism and the histories of state
violence and racism(s). She currently teaches courses in Global Inequality and Development Politics as well as Academic Writing
in the Department of Social Work at the University of Applied Sciences Campus Wien.
