Cooperative AI Conference

= "review how the international co-op network, social movements, unions, and solidarity economy initiatives can partner with policymakers to design programs that support workers."

URL = https://platform.coop/events/cooperativeai/

Held in Istanbul, 2025.

Description

"How can co-ops integrate emerging AI technologies without compromising, but instead advancing, their values and principles? Building on these questions, the conference will review how the international co-op network, social movements, unions, and solidarity economy initiatives can partner with policymakers to design programs that support workers. This includes creating new roles that integrate with AI-driven workplaces or, in some cases, assisting workers transition into more sustainable industries. Beyond adaptation, cooperatives can serve as bridges between civil society and AI, creating spaces for participatory technology development. As a deeply connected worldwide movement, co-ops can move beyond discussions of AI confined to academic echo chambers. With youth-driven and women-led “think-and-do hubs,” they can convene communities to imagine solutions tailored to specific local needs.

But to be able to do this, cooperatives should draw on their historical roots in driving radical change. If democratic enterprises are to play a meaningful role in shaping this future, they must face their own identity and commit to taking clear stands on planetary crises—whether the climate emergency, protracted wars, deepening divisions around racial justice, gender oppression, labor exploitation, or the hype and growing influence of AI controlled by unaccountable actors.

At its core, this conference emphasizes the potential of collective enterprises to actively constitute the futures that lie ahead. The cooperative movement could take on roles as ethical guardian, ensuring AI development aligns with principles of solidarity and inclusivity; community educator, demystifying algorithmic systems and their pressing implications for the public; policy influence, building legislative frameworks that aid workers in the transition; bridge-builder, setting up international partnerships between solidarity-based businesses and critical artificial intelligence developers; and steward of digital commons, actively using and promoting open-source AI tools.

Beyond merely defining their roles, cooperatives must seize the narrative from private equity visionaries and Silicon Valley leaders who have co-opted the language of “worker ownership” and “cooperative AI” to serve their own agendas, reclaiming it as a force for justice and collective benefit."