AI For Whom? Participation, Power and Educational Pathways in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT For four decades, discourses on digital divides have shaped engagement with societal transformation processes in the context of digitality. With the rapid development of AI technologies, these disparities are manifesting in an emerging “AI Divide” that not only reproduces existing social inequalities but potentially amplifies them. This article analyses the interactions between AI development, digital inequality and social participation, and argues, by way of example, against technological solutionism and techno‐ableism, which reduce complex social challenges to technically solvable problems. Instead, the necessity of a critical integration of AI safety and AI alignment with inclusive educational processes is elaborated. Central to this is the question of how transformative education can enable people not merely to adapt technically, but to actively participate in shaping an inclusive, AI‐influenced society. The article proposes anchoring inclusion as a continuous moment of reflection in the development and implementation of AI, and outlines pedagogical enabling spaces that can promote both “Inclusive AI” and “AI for Inclusion”.