From the 'social Question' to the 'digital Question': Challenges of a Digitalized Planet.

As our world becomes increasingly digitised, we are witnessing a profound shift from the old ‘social question’ that dominated the discourse of the 19th and 20th centuries to a new ‘digital question’ that defines the 21st century. This paper explores how the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies is reshaping social structures, economic systems and human interactions on a global scale, giving rise to new forms of inequality and injustice.

Through a socio-cybernetic approach, we examine the complex feedback loops between human behaviours, digital technologies, AI systems and social structures that perpetuate and exacerbate existing social disparities while creating new forms of exclusion. We are experiencing a great transformation where computers and data have moved beyond the machines that powered the industrial revolution.

Today, the planet is conditioned by data capitalism. Unprecedented control over personal data and digital infrastructures by corporations and states reflects historical power imbalances. This paper shows some global patterns of digital injustice and identifies possible mitigation strategies.

It proposes a roadmap for addressing the ‘digital question’ of our time from a socio-cybernetic basis, seeking alternative, sociologically imaginative perspectives that envision possible future developments and solutions to the challenge of ‘digital justice’ as a response to the ‘digital question’, avoiding the pitfalls of past social challenges.