AI agents: How corporate orchestration of autonomous systems deepens inequality and accelerates extractive innovation
Original framing: “Agent orchestration” — MIT Technology Review
The rise of AI agents mirrors past waves of automation, from the Luddites' resistance to mechanized looms to the offshoring of manufacturing jobs in the late 20th century. Each wave has been accompanied by promises of liberation and efficiency, yet has ultimately deepened inequality and concentrated power in the hands of capital. The current moment echoes the enclosure movements of the 18th century, where common lands were privatized for industrial use—a parallel to how AI agents privatize and monetize collective knowledge.
The rise of AI agents is not an isolated technological phenomenon but a manifestation of deeper structural forces: the concentration of capital, the enclosure of knowledge, and the precarization of labor.
These agents are being orchestrated by a coalition of venture capitalists, tech oligarchs, and policymakers who frame innovation as a neutral, market-driven process, obscuring its extractive and exclusionary dimensions. Historical parallels abound, from the enclosure movements of the 18th century to the offshoring of manufacturing jobs in the late 20th century, each wave reinforcing the power of capital over labor and nature. Yet, cross-cultural critiques—from Indigenous epistemologies to East Asian models of collective welfare—offer alternative visions of innovation that prioritize relationality and equity. The path forward requires dismantling the myth of AI neutrality and replacing it with a framework that centers marginalized voices, redistributes power, and reimagines technology as a tool for collective liberation rather than corporate extraction.