ABSTRACT
Across the preceding chapters, we treated spreadsheets, social media platforms, productivity suites, web stacks and generative AI models as cultural objects that are material in their effects. We began from two deceptively simple premises – that all software is an artefact of human making and that all software in turn shapes us – and have seen how consistently both these premise hold true. We have read these tools against the dimensions of political economy, considered their tacit defaults and looked at the long tail of many unintended consequences. In places, this commentary has approached almost a feeling of despair. This final chapter now turns to a positive claim. If software carries history and power, then the most radical gesture is not to renounce it but to remake it. To consider the potential for creating and using software that can benefit planetary survival, bring social equity and offer a future of work that is animated by exploration and creativity rather than efficiency metrics (Beer 1983). It builds directly on the analytical and methodological frameworks developed in previous chapters, turning them into a design brief for making and governing software differently.
