Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies at SOAS University of London, where he received his Chair as one of the youngest academics in his field. A distinguished scholar and world-renowned public intellectual, Adib-Moghaddam has held several honorary positions, including as a Senior Member of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge, where he finished his MPhil and PhD, and the first Jarvis Doctorow Junior Research Fellow at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford. In addition, Adib-Moghaddam is the inaugural Co-Director of the SOAS Centre for AI Futures. His newest book, "The Myth of Good AI: A Manifesto for Critical Artificial Intelligence", initiates his new book series "AI Futures" published by Manchester University Press. The book challenges dominant narratives about artificial intelligence from a global thought perspective and calls for justice-oriented, globally inclusive approaches to technology.

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Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field?

As ever, the main struggle is fought between the guardians of privileged knowledge, and most people who request better science that speaks to more social and political accountability, emancipation, and justice. In academia and beyond, such approaches are prevalent in the critical or decolonial movement, widely conceived. The latter is composed of intellectuals, activists, and laypeople who promote knowledge that is inclusive, as non-discriminatory as possible, and certainly truer than the canon. They are rewriting and restacking the human archives as we speak. So, this struggle has real-world implications. It is not only fought in the universities. President Trump, among many right-wing politicians, campaigned based on pushing back against critical or progressive knowledge. As we are conducting this interview, colleagues in the United States are essentially purged from their positions, as departments in critical theory, gender studies, critical race studies, etc., are closed. Essentially, culture itself is being dismantled in Trump’s United States, and the reverberations can be felt everywhere.

To continue to battle for better science, then, is the main contention, as it makes for better education and rather more just societies. Decolonial theory and practice have been recognized as a threat exactly because it equips anyone with the concepts and understanding to be truly emancipated citizens, which is so crucial for a functioning and inclusive society. So, it is this clash between truth through critical thinking and power exercised through force that I would identify as the most exciting struggle with all its visible political and ideological manifestations.

How has the way you understand the world changed over time, and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?

I have always been very eclectic in my reading. I would move from Ibn-Sina (Avicenna), who wrote about freedom and happiness in 11th century Persia, to Michel Foucault, who was a pivotal figure in the counter-cultural movement of the 1970s. My German background exposed me to the Frankfurt School, doyens of critical........

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