Ecological Dialogues 2025: What Is AI? Where Does It Come From and Who Benefits?

On July 2nd, we were part of Diálogos Ecologistas 2025 at the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Guayaquil Campus), a space for gathering and reflection on ecology, work, and resistance.
We participated alongside incredible voices such as Juan S. Carbonell (University of Liège, Belgium), Emiliano Terán (Observatory of Political Ecology, Venezuela), Euclides Mance (Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Brazil), Ana Castro (UPS Ecuador) and Diana Mosquera (Diversa) in a conversation moderated by Ivonne Yánez (Acción Ecológica). It was an enriching dialogue about the development of artificial intelligence and its material, political, and social implications. From Diversa, we shared a critical perspective on how AI is sustained by a profoundly unequal global value chain, which includes: extraction of natural resources in Global South territories, precarious and hidden digital labor, and power structures that concentrate control of this technology in very few hands. We also discussed the importance of recognizing AI as a political phenomenon, and building resistance that not only denounces but also proposes alternative paths: community-based, fair, and sustainable technologies that are developed with and from the territories.