Deepak Padmanabhan

I did all my three degrees - B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD - in Computer Science. My background is in AI and have authored 100+ publications, and three books. My current research interests are in the political economy of AI, and responsible AI, construed in the broadest sense. I regularly write in popular media about topics in the intersection of technology and politics.

I have a particular interest in understanding how AI is oriented towards the deepening of systemic inequalities within diverse domains, viewing these through the prism of critical political economy. I am keen on understanding and uncovering the ways in which the social relations of capitalism are embedded within AI technologies. A key research focus is on how these could be challenged to reimagine AI as a force for social good, and one that is aligned with the interests of governments as well as the interests of cooperativism in society.

My current research considers a variety of different issues on advancing the understanding of systemic harm caused by AI and data-driven technologies. These include research on how the usage of AI and data logics have played a significant part in advancing worker harm within the gig economy, a sector substantively powered by AI algorithms. Another stream of work focuses on how the social relations of capital have been brought into Web search through the usage of link-based importance estimation of web pages, a key innovation that Google has been noted for. Other recent work considers understanding how usage of state-of-the-art AI, due to their embedding of capitalist logics, could be inappropriate for usage within public administration tasks. In particular, their usage within key tasks such as electoral administration risks disenfranchising vulnerable groups through advancing the politics of exclusion. In interdisciplinary research located between AI and media, I have been looking at how inattention to Global South contexts has been institutionalised within AI for misinformation detection, making such algorithms not just inappropriate, but harmful for usage within Global South.

Apart from the above, I am very keen on understanding and evaluating the capability of current paradigms and norms within global debates on AI - such as AI safety and responsible AI - towards addressing the systemic issues of inequality, exclusion and exploitation that underpin the contemporary global society.

Recent research publications that address the above topics are listed below:

Deepak P, "The AI Triple Whammy: Algorithmic Pathways of Worker Harm in the Gig Economy", Journal of Extreme Anthropology 8 (2), 2025.

Deepak P, James Steinhoff, Stanley Simoes, "On the Political Economy of Link-based Web Search", tripleC Communication, Capitalism and Critique: Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 22(2), 2024.

Deepak P, "Electoral Administration and State-of-the-Art AI: A Cocktail of Incongruences", The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 48(2), 2024.

Deepak P, Sahely Bhadra, Anna Jurek-Loughrey, Santhosh Kumar G, M. Satish Kumar, "Geo-political Bias in Fake News Detection AI: The Case of Affect", AI and Ethics Journal, 2024

Marc Elliott, Deepak P, Muiris MacCarthaigh, "Evolving Generative AI: Entangling the Accountability Relationship", Digital Government: Research and Practice, 2024

Deepak P, "AI Safety: Necessary, but insufficient and possibly problematic", AI & Society Journal, 2024

Deepak P, "Mattanchery vs. Chellanam: On the Politics of Randomness in Algorithmic Work Allocation", Intl. Journal of Science, Technology and Innovation, 2024

Muiris MacCarthaigh, Stanley Simoes, Deepak P, "AI in the Public Sector: Fundamental operational questions and how to address them", Research Handbook on Public Management and Artificial Intelligence, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023

Deepak P, "AI and Fake News: Unpacking the Relationships within the Media Ecosystem", Communication and Journalism Research Journal 12 (1), 2023

Recently Accepted Manuscripts:

Sujit Mandava, Deepak P, Sahely Bhadra, "News about Global North considered Truthful! The Geo-political Veracity Gradient in Global South News", Emerging Media: Technology, Industry and Society (accepted)

Mac Elliott, Deepak P, "The Stability Dilemma: Addressing Uncertainty in Public Sector AI", IEEE-ETHICS 2025 (accepted)