Sen, 31 Agu
|Margin Library & Third Space
The Myth of Intelligence: Can AI Save Us From the Economy That Built It? | Monday Night Lectures Ep. 2
In this series of Monday Night Lectures, Dr Sheilla Njoto, PhD, presents a sociological interrogation of AI, power and labour, and whether intelligent machines can ever free us from the economy that built them.
Time & Location
31 Agu 2026, 19.00 – 21.00
Margin Library & Third Space, Jl. Pejaten Barat Raya No.10, Ragunan, Ps. Minggu, Kota Jakarta Selatan, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta 12540, Indonesia
About the event
Monday Night Lectures
Monday Night Lectures is The Working Theories’ open lecture series for ideas that deserve more than a soundbite. Held on Monday evenings, each session brings scholarship into an informal setting: one lecturer, one big question, and a room for thinking together. No prior expertise is required, only curiosity and a willingness to leave with better questions than the ones you arrived with.
About this Series
The Myth of Intelligent Machines: Can AI Save Us From the Economy That Built It?
Artificial intelligence is often presented as a technology that will transform work, democratise knowledge and solve problems at unprecedented scale. But AI did not emerge outside society. It was built within particular economic systems, institutions, labour arrangements and ideas about what intelligence and productivity should look like (i.e., the so-called 'meritocracy').
This lecture starts with Njoto's dissertation and research and expands it to ask what happens when we examine AI sociologically rather than technologically. Moving from algorithms and automated decision-making to organisations, markets and institutions, we will explore how digital systems inherit existing structures of power, reorganise labour and increasingly participate in the governance of everyday life.
The question, then, is not simply what AI can do. It is what kind of society our intelligent machines are being built to reproduce and whether technologies created by the current economy can genuinely offer us a way beyond it.
About the Lecturer
Aside from running Margin Library and The Working Theories, Sheilla Njoto, PhD is a digital sociologist, researcher and lecturer whose work examines artificial intelligence, algorithms, gender and the changing organisation of work. Her doctoral research investigated bias in automated and semi-automated recruitment systems, specifically interrogating 'the gendered use of language,' tracing how seemingly technical decisions can reproduce broader social inequalities.
Across academia and industry, her work sits at the intersection of sociology, gender and technology: interrogating the seemingly personal beliefs and decisions to ask much larger questions about institutions, power, and the societies we are building around them.
About The Working Theories
The Working Theories is a home for knowledge that refuses to call itself finished. We create spaces for scholarship, experimentation, and serious conversation beyond the boundaries of traditional institutions, bringing researchers, practitioners, and curious people together to examine the theories organising contemporary life.
We believe thinking should remain rigorous without becoming inaccessible, and that some of the most important questions are the ones we are still learning how to ask.