BRIQ (Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly) is currently seeking submissions for a special issue on “Artificial Intelligence, Productive Forces, and the Common Prosperity of Humanity.”
Throughout every major historical transformation, from the industrial revolutions to the digital transformation, humanity has passed through periods in which the relationship between the development of the productive forces and forms of social organization has been reconsidered. Today, artificial intelligence is one of the key subjects of this relationship. By accelerating the processing of information, influencing decision-making processes, expanding the scope of scientific research, and transforming production processes, artificial intelligence is being discussed together with questions of labor, property, planning, sovereignty, and social welfare. The effects of this transformation on the workforce should also be examined from multiple angles. The ways in which robotization affects blue-collar labor, and generative AI and automation affect white-collar cognitive labor, may be assessed together with such issues as unemployment, reskilling, the changing nature of work, labor-market polarization, bargaining power, and the social distribution of productivity gains.
The current trajectory of artificial intelligence also gives rise to a range of social, economic, and legal debates. A central question is for what purposes, and within which institutional structures, the technological capacity created by humanity’s common body of knowledge, publicly funded research, universities, open-data ecosystems, and social labor is being used. The decisive position of major technology corporations in the field of artificial intelligence calls for critical inquiry into data ownership, infrastructure control, platform power, advertising, consumer guidance, and digital surveillance. At the same time, the ways in which artificial intelligence can be used for the public good in areas such as health, education, transportation, energy, disaster management, agricultural planning, industrial modernization, and scientific discovery are among the fundamental questions requiring further research.
On the other hand, the use of artificial intelligence in public services, industrial capacity, scientific research, production planning, and social needs in various countries, especially China, offers important examples for comparative studies. Artificial intelligence also raises new questions that must be examined in relation to the dynamics of uneven development at the international level. Differences in data, chips, computing infrastructure, researcher-training capacity, and industrial integration, as well as their effects on countries’ relative positions, forms of specialization, and relations of technological dependence, are among the themes of this special issue. For this reason, artificial intelligence may be addressed not only in terms of market applications, but also in relation to public interest, social development, and common prosperity.
Artificial intelligence also carries significant transformative potential for science. As new research possibilities emerge in big data analysis, modeling, simulation, materials science, biotechnology, drug development, climate research, and the basic sciences, issues such as method, verification, authorship, labor, originality, and research ethics in academic production are also being opened to debate. Therefore, it is important to examine for which social purposes, under whose control, within which ethical and legal boundaries, and from which perspective of development artificial intelligence will be used.
Within this framework, BRIQ invites critical, comparative, theoretical, and empirical studies that address the effects of artificial intelligence on the development of productive forces, the workforce, social welfare, scientific production, public planning, international inequalities, and ethical governance. Monopolization in the field of technology, public-interest alternatives, the experiences of developing countries, the transformation of labor in the face of robotization and artificial intelligence, the dynamics of uneven development, and the relationship between scientific progress and social benefit are among the priority areas of interest for this special issue.
Within the general framework outlined above, BRIQ welcomes article submissions on, but not limited to, the following areas:
* The effects of artificial intelligence and robotization on the development of productive forces; the labor process, productivity, industrial policies, and technological transformation
* The effects of artificial intelligence and robotization on the workforce; the automation of blue-collar labor, the transformation of white-collar cognitive labor, the risk of unemployment, reskilling, labor-market polarization, and the social distribution of productivity gains
* The relationship between artificial intelligence and scientific production; research processes, the speed of discovery, verification mechanisms, and academic labor
* The use of artificial intelligence for the public good in areas such as health, education, agriculture, transportation, disaster management, energy, and local governments
* The position of major technology corporations in the field of artificial intelligence; data ownership, infrastructure control, platform power, and relations of digital dependence
* The social consequences of the uses of artificial intelligence in individual consumption, advertising, and surveillance
* Comparative country experiences, policies, institutions, and practices concerning public-oriented, planning-oriented, or social-benefit-centered uses of artificial intelligence
* Artificial intelligence, national development, and technological sovereignty in developing countries; data sovereignty, computing infrastructure, and open-source strategies
* Artificial intelligence, the international division of labor, and uneven development; countries’ relative technological positions, new forms of specialization, computing infrastructure, data sovereignty, relations of technological dependence, and global power balances
* Academic ethics in the age of generative artificial intelligence; authorship, plagiarism, transparency, citation practices, accuracy, and the transformation of peer-review processes
* Ethical boundaries in artificial intelligence; human oversight, explainability, accountability, discrimination, privacy, and public safety
* Artificial intelligence governance; national regulatory models, the search for international norms, and legal frameworks centered on the common interests of humanity
* Artificial intelligence and education; not only skills alignment, but also the reproduction of citizenship, critical thinking, and scientific culture
* The effects of artificial intelligence in culture, language, and communication; linguistic inequalities, cultural hegemony, and multilingualism
* Artificial intelligence in the context of open science, open data, and technology ecosystems oriented toward social benefit
* The tensions and boundary debates between the militarization of artificial intelligence and its civilian/public-interest uses
Submission Guidelines
* Article submissions are accepted in Turkish and English.
* Manuscripts must be original and not under consideration elsewhere.
* Length: 5,000–9,000 words
* Citation style: APA 7
* All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer-review process
(For more detailed information, see https://briqjournal.com/en/submission-guidelines)
Full paper submission: December 1, 2026.
Submission and Contact: briq@briqjournal.com