Advance Praise

Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology: Governing the Default has drawn responses from scholars, practitioners, educators, public intellectuals, data leaders, health professionals, and governance thinkers working across AI ethics, feminist digital justice, leadership, education, healthcare, public accountability, and institutional change.

Their endorsements do more than praise the book. They help locate the conversations this volume enters: whose knowledge counts, who has authority to challenge technological systems, how care and repair become enforceable, and what institutions must build before AI-mediated decisions become default.

The reflections below are grouped by the different pathways through which readers may enter the book.

  • Feminist, Global South & Epistemic Justice

  • AI, Evidence & Public Judgment

  • Leadership & Organizations

  • Health, Education, Care & Youth

  • AI, Culture & Public Meaning

Feminist, Global South, and Epistemic Justice

These readers situate the volume within feminist digital justice, African and Indigenous methodologies, decolonial thought, care ethics, and the politics of knowledge. Their endorsements foreground one of the book’s central claims: AI governance is not only a technical or institutional question, but an epistemic one — whose knowledge counts, whose context matters, and who has authority to name harm, success, and repair.

“The most interesting interventions do not simply critique existing systems; they change our ability to perceive them. Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology does exactly that, showing how questions of care, consent, refusal, and repair belong at the heart of governance rather than at its periphery. In doing so, it bridges knowing and acting, making this an intellectually generous and practically ambitious collection.”

—MINNA SALAMI,

author of Can Feminism Be African? and Sensuous Knowledge

  • Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology makes an important contribution to feminist digital justice by refusing to treat AI governance as a narrow technical or compliance problem. Haskell and the contributors show how data and AI systems reproduce power when questions of care, consent, accountability, refusal, and repair are subordinated to scale, efficiency, and market-led innovation. The volume offers a timely vocabulary for governance that centers democratic participation, social justice, gender equality, and the knowledge of communities most affected by technological change.

    —ANITA GURUMURTHY,

    Executive Director and Senior Fellow, Research & Policy Engagement, IT for Change

  • At a time when AI debates are dominated by hype and fear, this book offers something far more valuable: practical ways to build technologies that center care, accountability, and inclusion. This work moves beyond abstract AI ethics to confront the deeper questions of power by drawing attention to whose knowledge counts and whose voices shape our technological futures. This timely volume offers a compelling roadmap for more inclusive and responsible innovation.

    —PAYAL ARORA,

    Author of From Pessimism to Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech

“This book shows that technology governance is also an evaluative question: whose knowledge counts, whose context matters, and who has authority to name harm, success, and repair. By centering African, Indigenous, feminist, and justice-centered ways of knowing, this volume challenges the epistemic violence of technological defaults and offers practical pathways for more accountable governance.”

—PROFESSOR BAGELE CHILISA,

Postgraduate Research and Evaluation Programme, University of Botswana; author of Indigenous Research Methodologies

  • “An insightful and timely volume that teases out how agentic technologies are assembled through logics of capitalist extraction, racialized discipline, and uneven geographies of power. Moving beyond compliance-focused governance, it offers a compelling vision for accountability and care as the foundation of responsible technological futures.”

    –IMAAN MAFTAH,
    Senior AI Policy Analyst & Researcher

  • “This volume presents what is most needed in studies of technology and its governance: an ethic of care. Through rigorous analyses of procurement, companion AI, parenting, women’s health, and other domains, the contributors build toward a powerful converging message: another sociotechnical future is possible through alternative ways of knowing, governing, and acting.”

    –ONUR BAKINER, PhD, MSc,

    Professor of political science and Director of the Technology Ethics Initiative at Seattle University

  • “The volume Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology contributes significantly to the current landscape of care ethics and technology by addressing pressing issues in the field and advancing research to fill gaps in the literature. Recent literature on technology in healthcare and other care spaces has highlighted the need to incorporate intersectional, decolonial, and relational perspectives into the analysis of new technologies. This book engages this challenge by delving into different aspects of care and technology, including Ubuntu ethics, AI friendship, empowerment, and women’s health, among others. Thanks to this variety, rather than simply pointing out the need for a feminist lens in technology ethics, the book is able to articulate new responses to this need noticed in the current literature, and, because of that, its novelty, pertinence, and relevance are prominent.”

    –BELEN LIEDO,
    Assistant Professor, King Juan Carlos University (Madrid)

AI, Evidence, and Public Judgment

These endorsements speak to the book’s contribution to AI governance, data practice, evidence, accountability, and responsible institutional decision-making. They emphasize that trustworthy AI cannot rest on model performance, compliance language, or abstract principles alone. It requires decision rights, credible evidence, contestability, and repair.

“The centralization of AI power in the hands of a small number of mostly male technology leaders is a danger to society. To turn the tide, books like this are vital. We need to raise awareness of the issues of power, gender, and accountability — and we also need practical toolkits and governance guidance to address them. Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology: Governing the Default is a timely reflection on the imbalance shaping the AI industry and a useful resource for leaders and institutions.”

--ANDY COTGREAVE

Co-Founder, How To Speak Data

  • “This book is a very important and timely contribution to the AI governance debate, adding an essential feminist and relational lens. It moves beyond theoretical discussion to offer practical tools that can be adopted now in this rapidly developing field.”

    --CAROLINE GREEN

    Director of Engagement, Institute of AI Ethics, University of Oxford

  • “The future of AI will not be determined by technology alone. It will be determined by the governance structures, power dynamics, and ethical choices that shape how these systems are designed and deployed. Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology: Governing the Default asks the questions too many conversations still avoid, and reminds us that human dignity is not protected by good intentions, but by thoughtful governance and accountable design. A timely and compelling book for anyone serious about the future of AI and society.”

    --CLARA HAWKING,

    Co-Founder, Kompass Education

“This book gets at something practitioners feel every day but rarely name: AI governance isn’t just a technical or compliance problem; it’s a question of who gets to say, ‘This isn’t working,’ and whether the organization actually listens. The chapters translate that into something usable—decision rights, evidence, and accountability—not abstractions. Anyone building AI into a large enterprise should read this before their next platform rollout, not after.”

--NACHIKET MEHTA,

Vice President, AI & Data Engineering

  • “Power, accountability, and responsibility lie at the heart of this book. It explores whether increasingly powerful AI systems can be governed—and asks who pays the price when they fail.”

    --KAT GREENBROOK,

    Founder and Data Storyteller, Rogue Penguin; Author of The Data Storyteller’s Handbook

  • “This volume makes an important contribution to AI governance by asking not only how organizations can make AI-assisted work more reliable, but who bears the cost when systems fail. Its feminist and relational governance lens brings needed attention to evidence, consent, refusal, repair, and accountability—the human and institutional dimensions that must be addressed if AI adoption is to become truly defensible.

    —Dr. DARREN W. PULSIPHER, Chief Solution Architect

  • “Most AI governance conversations focus on platforms, tools, and compliance. But there are harder, more human questions to ask: whose knowledge is treated as credible, who carries responsibility when systems fail, and who has the authority to say no when something is wrong? Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology: Governing the Default takes these questions seriously and treats them as the core work of governing AI well. Practitioners and leaders will find both insight and practical value here as they navigate the promise, pressure, and emerging harms of AI in organizational life.”

    —DONALD FARMER,

    Principal, TreeHive Strategy

Leadership, Organizations, & Decision-Making

These readers locate the volume in leadership, organizational judgment, inclusion, decision sciences, and institutional accountability. Their endorsements show how the book reframes women’s leadership not simply as representation, but as stewardship: the work of making evidence visible, distributing authority, protecting human judgment, and building systems capable of repair.

“We are heading into unknown waters as AI begins to envelop and redesign the boats we are all sailing. The history of technological development suggests that the optimistic promises made by advocates of change are seldom evenly distributed, nor are their effects universally benign. This book demonstrates both why that is the case and how we might collectively construct responsible governance systems by reconceptualizing what consent and resistance mean — and how we might lead that movement.”

—KEITH GRINT,

Emeritus Professor, Warwick Business School

  • Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology powerfully shows that women’s leadership is not only a matter of representation, but a form of stewardship: bringing relational knowledge, accountability, and repair into the systems that shape technological life. This volume moves beyond principles by offering practical tools that help leaders recognize how power operates in emerging technologies and redesign institutions around care, responsibility, and repair. A timely and essential resource for anyone committed to responsible innovation and women’s leadership.

    --Dr./Prof. SUSAN r. MADSEN

    Professor of Leadership, Director, Utah Women & Leadership Project

  • “Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology makes a timely contribution to leadership, decision sciences, and organization studies by showing how AI-enabled systems redistribute authority and reshape institutional judgment. Haskell and the contributors examine who is authorized to decide, whose evidence is treated as credible, where responsibility is routed, and how repair becomes possible when technology shapes organizational action. The volume’s theory-to-practice architecture translates ethical and governance analysis into tools that can be taught, tested, and adapted across organizational settings.”

    --RICKARD ENGSTROEM, PhD, CMgr FCMI

    Associate Professor of Decision Sciences, Triffo School of Business, MacEwan University

  • “Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology offers vitally important wisdom for this moment. Will AI perpetuate the patriarchal power structures and biases that have brought us to this moment of polycrisis, or can it become a force for greater inclusion, justice, equity, and compassion? The answer depends on the choices leaders and institutions make now. This book offers informed analysis and practical tools to help ensure that AI becomes a force for transformation rather than a mechanism for perpetuating the injustices and blind spots threatening our democracy and our planet. It is a must-read.”

    Dr. MAX KLAU,

    Founder, Center for Courageous Wholeness; author of Developing Servant Leaders at Scale: How to Do It and Why It Matters

“This is an important offering from the voices, perspectives, and clarity that have not been part of our understanding or policy decisions, here applied to the massive cultural shifts introduced by AI and new technologies. Always, those marginalized, trivialized, and ignored have clearer vision; not only do they name the dynamics and issues, they experience them. Usually silenced, here women use their direct experience combined with brilliant scholarship to sharpen a lens not available elsewhere. They see deeply into the dynamics, the systemic relationships, and cultural blindness now being exposed with new technologies. May we use this clarity to change our minds and behaviors.”

—MARGARET J. WHEATLEY,

author of many books, from Leadership and the New Science (1992) to Who Do We Choose to Be? (2023) and Restoring Sanity (2024)

  • “Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology extends the inclusion conversation into one of the most urgent leadership challenges of our time: how organizations design the systems in which people are seen, heard, and able to exercise judgment. Haskell and the contributors show that belonging is not only an interpersonal aspiration; it depends on whether people can surface evidence, question defaults, challenge bias, and participate in repairing the systems that shape opportunity and harm.”

    Dr. STEFANIE K. JOHNSON

    Director, CU Boulder Center for Leadership, author of WSJ National Bestseller, INCLUSIFY

  • “Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology makes a key contribution to debates on expertise and technology by challenging taken-for-granted assumptions and bringing forward alternative perspectives. At a time when technological development is often treated as autonomous, interventions such as this are essential for reaffirming human agency and professional judgment.”

    —JOHAN ALVEHUS,

    Professor, Department of Service Studies, Lund University

  • “This crucial book unmasks the systemic blind spots of modern technological governance, revealing how algorithmic systems shift burdens onto those closest to the impact. It is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand how institutions must change what they count as evidence in order to ensure true accountability, justice, and repair.”

    —DRESDEN FARRAND,

    Managing Director, International Leadership Association

  • “This extremely timely cross-disciplinary book raises the bar for the human-centric design of AI-enabled systems in organizations and society, by exposing the harmful defaults of gendered technocracy. It offers multi-faceted evidence of the radical potential of the AI-enabled systems: to alleviate our burdens while aggravating risks. It demonstrates the importance of relational governance and reframes the role of women as thoughtful stewards of institutional accountability and the AI-engaged world’s destiny. In other words, it outlines the steel-clad prenup for humanity that is about to take its romance with AI to “till death do us part”. The book is a provocative interrogation of the limits of human power in relations with AI agents. It encourages readers to reassess their assumptions about the ethics, governance, and accountability to ensure that humans are unfailingly in the loop.”

    —ELIZABETH GORYUNOVA, Ph.D.,

    Professor, Leadership & Org Studies, University of Southern Maine

Health, Education, Care, and Youth

These endorsements highlight the book’s practical relevance for classrooms, clinics, youth-serving institutions, higher education, healthcare, and professional learning. They speak to the volume’s applied tools for recognizing hidden repair labor, governing relational risk, protecting human development, and making care accountable in AI-mediated settings.

“Too often AI tools are handed to clinicians with great attention to accuracy and almost none to how decisions actually get made at the bedside. This volume treats that gap as the central governance problem and offers concrete tools for building validation, workflow integration, and the authority to pause or refuse into the systems themselves. It is timely, and it is genuinely usable.”

--MAX TOPAZ, PhD, RN, MA, FAAN, FIAHSI

Associate Professor, Columbia University & VNS Health

  • In this powerful chapter, Tricia Friedman gives educators language for something many of us have sensed in schools but have not yet been able to articulate: Relational Drift—when a companion AI bot seems to get you more than the humans around you do. Her ScenarioSHIFT framework gives school leaders a practical way to navigate this emerging challenge, while reminding us that existing SEL programs are well placed to turn that thinking into explicit teaching and everyday routines. This chapter alone is worth the price of admission, and it is just one example of the remarkable insights from the outstanding female thought leaders brought together in this essential collection.

    --APRIL REMFREY,

    Founder of and Lead Inclusion Consultant for Remfrey Educational Consulting

  • Responsible AI isn’t simply about adopting new technologies—it’s about building institutions capable of making wise decisions as technology evolves. Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology offers a thoughtful and practical framework for leaders who want to move beyond AI ethics statements toward governance practices that are actionable, accountable, and grounded in human relationships. This book will be a valuable resource for anyone shaping the future of AI in education, government, healthcare, and other mission-driven organizations.

    —CLAIRE L. BRADY, EdD

    AI in Higher Education Strategist; author of AI with Intention; Executive Consultant and Speaker

“As institutions welcome AI into classrooms and advising relationships, this book asks the question school leaders cannot afford to skip: what happens to care and mentorship when a machine is listening instead of us? Tricia Friedman’s chapter on companion AI and the future of friendship makes a distinctive contribution here, naming ‘relational drift’ as a sovereignty issue for schools rather than a matter of individual student choice. The volume as a whole gives educators practical tools for keeping accountability, not just innovation, at the center of the decision.”

--NICOLE BRITTINGHAM FURLONGE, PHD

Klingenstein Family Chair Professor of Practice; Executive Director, Klingenstein Center; Director, EdD in Executive Leadership, Teachers College, Columbia University

  • “Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology does something you do not see enough of in AI governance work: it moves beyond principles and gives leaders real tools to work with. Decision-rights matrices, claims-evidence registers, and repair logs make care and accountability enforceable rather than merely aspirational. Christine Haskell and Leah Jacobs’s chapter, ‘Governing the Heart of the Machine,’ is especially compelling. It reframes youth AI risk as a structural failure rather than something individuals should have to manage on their own, and the Invoiced Accountability Protocol offers a genuinely practical way to make relational labor visible and ensure that it counts. Anyone building systems, curricula, or institutions meant to serve people in an AI-saturated world should have this book on their shelf.”

    —CYNTHIA TYSICK,

    Innovative Pedagogy and Creative Spaces Librarian, University at Buffalo

  • This volume takes the ethical leadership of innovation beyond compliance and into practice. It offers a compelling framework for recognizing harm early, strengthening accountability, enabling meaningful oversight, and ensuring that technological decisions remain accountable to the people they affect. For leaders navigating the human consequences of emerging technology, this book is an invaluable resource.

    —KELLY MEKDECI, Ed.D.

    Executive Coach and International Educator

AI, Culture, and Public Meaning

These readers place the volume in broader debates about technological futures, public meaning, cultural authority, and the social consequences of AI adoption. Their endorsements ask how institutions, media systems, and public narratives shape what people come to accept as inevitable—and what forms of accountability become possible when those defaults are challenged.

“As companies, governments, universities, and a host of other institutions race to implement various forms of artificial intelligence, Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology looks to intervene in debates about how exactly to proceed with such uncertain technologies. Drawing on frameworks from a variety of academic disciplines and industrial sectors, the chapters in the collection offer practical ways to analyze and implement choices about our shared technological futures, often concluding that current policy approaches to emerging technologies too often ignore the very communities and people to whom they should be paying the most attention: those who are excluded, harmed and overlooked by ‘default’ tech sector values of optimization, scale and efficiency.”

—Dr. Jeremy Morris

Faculty Director, Center for Humanistic Inquiry into Uncertainty and AI, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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“The hideous mantra ‘move fast and break things’ has become the governing ideology of a technological oligarchy that remains largely white, male, overconfident, and insulated from the consequences of its own creations. Most people have little control over the systems these actors impose on society, and marginalized communities are too often left to absorb the damage. Gender, Power, and Emergent Technology explains why this pattern must be reversed: those most affected by a system should have real authority in governing it. Every chapter offers not only a theoretical critique of what is wrong with modern technologies, but practical recommendations for how institutions can make care, accountability, and repair part of their design. I hope it will be read widely.”

—ALBERTO CAIRO,

Knight Chair in Infographics and Data Visualization, University of Miami; author of The Art of Insight

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