This project examines how Mobile AI—artificial intelligence embedded in mobile devices and urban infrastructures—shapes everyday life, communication, and mobility in low-income urban communities across globally diverse contexts. Through a mixed-methods approach combining discourse analysis, infrastructural mapping, and participatory interviews, the research investigates how different sociopolitical contexts produce distinct arrangements of Mobile AI systems, from ride-hailing platforms and delivery apps to intelligent transport systems and facial recognition technologies.
The project addresses a critical gap in mobile communication and mobilities scholarship by centering Global South perspectives and documenting both the governing power of algorithmic systems—which structure access to essential services, economic opportunities, and urban participation—and the creative appropriation practices through which communities negotiate, resist, and reimagine these technologies.
By working collaboratively with community organizations, platform workers, and residents, the research generates theoretical insights into how Mobile AI operates as communication technology, mobility infrastructure, and governing apparatus simultaneously, while co-creating policy recommendations, critical literacy resources, and educational materials to foster more just and equitable technological futures grounded in community voices and knowledge systems.
By
Adriana de Souza e Silva, Dan O’Brien, Maria Elena Villar, and Yifan Xu