Our DiPLab seminar is delighted to welcome on November 21, 2025, at 3:00 PM CET our friend and collaborator Dr. Martín Tironi, of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.. The seminar will be held in person at the Shaker Space of the ISC-PIF (Institut des Systèmes Complexes – Paris Île de France), 113 rue Nationale, 75013 Paris. To register, click on the button below and fill out the form. The seminar is free to attend. Register here GROUNDING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN ITS PLANETARY CONDITIONS: AN EXPLORATION AND INTERVENTION ON RARE EARTHS IN CHILE In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the main socio-technical solutions for tackling the global climate crisis. It is credited with the ability to mitigate its effects through tools for reducing emissions, predictive modeling, and environmental monitoring. However, its expansion is based on a narrative that perpetuates the illusion of an immaterial and deterritorialized technology, capable of emancipating us from the physical world on which it nevertheless depends. This presentation outlines a research-creation program aimed at considering the terrestrial condition of AI, i.e., its material, ecological, and geopolitical anchors. Based on the controversy surrounding rare earth extraction in southern Chile, which places the town of Penco on the map of global extractive tensions, analytical and curatorial operations are explored with the aim of “grounding” AI in its geological, social, and political conditions. Drawing on the notion of “excess” developed by Marisol de la Cadena, the aim is to highlight the need to pay attention to what goes beyond modern classification frameworks. In the intertwining of geological times, mining projects, transformed ecologies, and affected communities, controversies emerge that connect local landscapes to global debates around critical minerals for the digital transition. Martín Tironi is an associate professor and former director of the School of Design at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, as well as director of the Núcleo Milenio Futures of Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR). A sociologist trained at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, he holds a master’s degree from Paris Descartes University (Sorbonne V) and a doctorate from the Centre for Sociology of Innovation at the École des Mines de Paris. In 2018, he was a visiting professor at the Centre for Invention and Social Process at Goldsmiths, University of London. He currently leads the Fondecyt project “Digital Technologies for Climate Change” (2024–2028) and is principal investigator of the SEED project (Social and Environmental Effects of Data Connectivity, Chile–France, ECOS-ANID), which examines the hybrid ecologies associated with submarine cables and data centers, essential infrastructures for satellite data processing. His work lies at the intersection of design, technology, and ecology, exploring the links between artificial intelligence, digital materialities, and the planetary limits of innovation. He was part of the team that won the Gold Medal at the London Design Biennale 2023 with the Tectonic Resonance project, and is currently presenting, with Manuela Garretón, the installation Hybrid Ecologies: The Planetary Metabolism of AI at the Venice Biennale 2025.

DiPLab researchers Paola Tubaro and Antonio Casilli recently completed a research mission to Santiago, Chile, participating in key academic events that advanced understanding of artificial intelligence’s social and environmental dimensions. Tubaro delivered a keynote address at the 4th annual workshop of the Millennium Nucleus on the Evolution of Work (M-NEW), where she serves as a senior international member. The interdisciplinary workshop convened labor scholars from across Latin America and internationally to examine contemporary work transformations. Her presentation drew on DiPLab’s multi-year research program investigating the invisible human labor underlying global AI production. Tubaro’s analysis traced the evolution of this work form over two decades, demonstrating that while core functions in smart system development have remained consistent, the scope and volume of these tasks have expanded significantly. Tubaro and Casilli also participated in the inaugural meeting of SEED (“Social and Environmental Effects of Data connectivity: Hybrid ecologies of transoceanic cables and data centers in Chile and France”), a new collaborative research project between DiPLab and the Millennium Nucleus FAIR (“Futures of Artificial Intelligence Research”). The project has received joint funding from the ECOS-SUD programme (France) and ANID (Chile) to analyze the complete AI value chain, examining production, development, employment impacts, usage patterns, and environmental consequences through comparative study of the Valparaíso-Santiago de Chile and Marseille-Paris corridors. In their SEED presentations, Tubaro and Casilli introduced the concept of the “dual footprint” as an analytical framework for understanding the interconnected environmental and social impacts of AI systems. This heuristic device captures commonalities and interdependencies between AI’s effects on natural and social environments that provide resources for its production and deployment. DiPLab researchers framed the AI industry as a transnational value chain that perpetuates existing global inequalities. Countries driving AI development generate substantial demand for inputs while externalizing social costs through the value chain to more peripheral actors. These arrangements distribute AI’s costs and benefits unequally, resulting in unsustainable practices and limiting upward mobility for disadvantaged countries. The dual footprint framework demonstrates how environmental and social dimensions of AI emerge from similar structural dynamics, providing a unified approach to understanding AI’s comprehensive impact on global resource systems.