This is a summary of the book titled “From pessimism to promise” written by Payal Arora and published by MIT Press in 2024. The author is a digital anthropologist who reconciles diverse take on the digital future where the Global South are eager for it and the West is mostly apprehensive. Western policymakers are focused on breaking up large tech companies and regulate AI and social media. She contends that AI design should focus on relationships and how people can develop technology for positive ends. She asks us to imagine the possibilities of a creative economy that engages young people, especially when these technologies encourage pleasure and intimacy. It can be used for surveillance in a police state but can also be used to care for others. And it could support a green economy. In fact, AI cannot stand apart from the physical multicultural world. We must just design AI such that it avoids the Global South’s colonial past.

Western users have negative attitudes towards digital technologies, viewing platforms as traps and algorithms as manipulative. This has led to a "pessimism paralysis" where Westerners are more likely to accept the status quo than try to change it. However, young people in the Global South, including China and India, see digital culture as a source of joy, inspiration, and liberation. Nearly 90% of youth worldwide live in the Global South, and they are optimistic about the future and eager to use digital platforms to change their lives and the world. AI design should focus on relationships and how people can develop technology for positive ends, rather than grandiose plans to "save the world." Tech designers should focus on the relationships between real people, concrete circumstances, and actionable policies, rather than looking at things in black-and-white or binary ways. The real world is messy, and technology that will benefit humans in their daily lives requires designing with the on-the-ground contexts and experiences of users in mind.

The concept of the "creative class" has evolved, with the next big movement in digital culture and the creative economy likely coming from the tens of millions of young people in the Global South. These young people, weighed down by social and political pressures, are eager to define their digital futures and are looking to their people as creative assets, legitimate markets, and content partners. Social media apps like TikTok and Bigo have thrived in the Global South due to their focus on the poor and marginalized, allowing them to gain greater visibility and engage in the creative economy.

Digital technologies should be designed to encourage pleasure and intimacy, as 35% of internet downloads are connected to pornography, with one-third of the porn-viewing audience being women. In countries where open discussion of sex and sexuality is taboo, young people often turn to digital pornography as a form of sex education. Countries in the Global South, like India, are proactive in controlling access to online sexual content, but NGOs have embraced social media campaigns and apps to broaden access to sex education.

Digital innovators are exploring ways for young people to build ties online that prioritize romance and relationships over sex. Platforms like Soulgate and FRND aim to create an open, pleasurable, and safe environment for young people to connect. Digital technologies can be used for surveillance in a police state, but they can also be used to care for others. A surveillance system of care that moves away from watching each other as a form of policing to watching over one another as a form of recognition and compassion is needed to rebuild social trust.

Design AI in ways that support a green economy is crucial for promoting environmental and social goals. Over half of a product's environmental impact is shaped by decisions made at the design phase. Indigenous communities in the Global South have developed four categories of design approaches: frugality, collectivity, subsistence, and repair. These approaches focus on reimagining power relations, valuing diversity, and repurposing existing structures.

AI cannot stand apart from the physical, multicultural world, as it is a human activity that is incorporated into people's lives. To promote sustainable, green design, it is essential to evaluate the material costs of incorporating AI and digital automation into human life. The digital future must promote the health of the environment and human societies, and companies, entrepreneurs, and designers must adopt a multicultural and multilingual approach.

AI design must move past the colonial past and "decolonize" AI and its datasets and algorithms. Businesses and institutions must not only state moral and political principles but also work towards a more inclusive and equitable digital culture.