"Artificial Intelligence (AI) is woven into a supply chain of capital, commodities and human labour that has been neglected in critical debates. Given the current surge in generative AI – which is estimated to drive up the extraction of natural resources such as minerals, fossil fuels or water –
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it is vital to investigate its entire production line from a critical infrastructural perspective. Drawing on the supply chain capitalism, a concept coined by Anna L. Tsing in 2009, this paper contributes to critical AI studies by investigating the structure of AI supply chains, taking into account the mining, electronics, digital and e-waste industry. This paper illustrates how the supply chain capitalism of AI is precipitating geographical asymmetries connected to contested struggles in México by focusing on a key element of these chains: data centres. In times of climate emergency, this paper calls to reconsider algorithmic harms and resistance by investigating the entire capitalist production line of the AI industry from critical and environmental lens." (Abstract)
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"This article focuses on the AI for Social Good (AI4SG) movement, which aims to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). It argues that, through AI4SG, Big Tech is attempting to advance AIdriven technosolut
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ionism within the development policy and scholarly space creating new opportunities for rent extraction. The article situates AI4SG, within the history of ICT4D. It also highlights the contiguity of AI4SG with the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), a framework that places AI and other digital innovations at the center of national and international development and industrial policy agendas. By exploring how Big Tech has attempted to depoliticize datafication, we thus suggest that AI4SG and 4IR are mutually reinforcing discourses that serve the purpose of depoliticizing the development arena by bestowing legitimacy and authority to Big Tech to reshape policy spaces and epistemic infrastructures while inserting themselves, to an unprecedented degree, between the citizen (data) and the state (development and policy)." (Abstract)
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"The emerging ecosystem of artificial intelligence (AI) ethics and governance auditing has grown rapidly in recent years in anticipation of impending regulatory efforts that encourage both internal and external auditing. Yet, there is limited understanding of this evolving landscape. We conduct an i
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nterview-based study of 34 individuals in the AI ethics auditing ecosystem across seven countries to examine the motivations, key auditing activities, and challenges associated with AI ethics auditing in the private sector. We find that AI ethics audits follow financial auditing stages, but tend to lack robust stakeholder involvement, measurement of success, and external reporting. Audits are hyper-focused on technically oriented AI ethics principles of bias, privacy, and explainability, to the exclusion of other principles and socio-technical approaches, reflecting a regulatory emphasis on technical risk management. Auditors face challenges, including competing demands across interdisciplinary functions, firm resource and staffing constraints, lack of technical and data infrastructure to enable auditing, and significant ambiguity in interpreting regulations and standards given limited (or absent) best practices and tractable regulatory guidance. Despite these roadblocks, AI ethics and governance auditors are playing a critical role in the early ecosystem: building auditing frameworks, interpreting regulations, curating practices, and sharing learnings with auditees, regulators, and other stakeholders." (Abstract)
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"We present a framework for viewing artificial intelligence (AI) as planetary assemblages of coloniality that reproduce dependencies in how it co-constitutes and structures a tiered global data economy. We use assemblage thinking to map the coloniality of power to demonstrate how AI stratifies acros
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s knowledge, geographies, and bodies to influence development and economic trajectories, impact workers, reframe domestic industrial policies, and reconfigure the international political economy. Our post-colonial framework unpacks AI through its (1) global, (2) meso, and (3) local layers, and further dissects how these layers are vertically integrated, each with its horizontal dependencies. At (1) the global layer of international political economy maps a new digital bipolarity expressing Sino and American global digital corporations’ strategic and dominant positions in shaping a tiered global data economy. Then, at (2) the meso layer, we have a mosaic of domestic industrial policies that fund, frame markets, and develop AI talent across industries, sectors, and organizations to competitively integrate into AI value chains. Finally, incorporating into these are (3) the localized labor processes and tasks, where workers and users enact various AI-mediated tasks and practices driving further value extraction. We traced how AI is an interlaced system of power that reshapes knowledge, geographies, and bodies into dependencies that reinforce stratifications in developing underdevelopment. This commentary maps the current digital realities by laying out an uneven techno-geoeconomic power architecture driving a tiered global data economy and opening new research avenues to examine AI as planetary assemblages of coloniality." (Abstract)
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"Längst ist Künstliche Intelligenz nicht mehr auf kognitive Zwecke begrenzt: Sie wertet, etwa zur Kriminalitätsprävention oder gezielten Kundenansprache, menschliche Mimik aus und suggeriert in Spielen oder Lernprogrammen Emotionen und Stimmungen. Erscheinen bereits solche auf Empfindungen ziele
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nde Anwendungen durchaus kritikwürdig, so wirft es für die Philosophin Eva Guskar-Weber erst recht Fragen auf, wenn Chatbots oder Avatare zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen ersetzen sollen. Sind rote Linien überschritten, wenn emotionale KI nicht mehr selbstbestimmt in einer gemeinsamen Realität mit anderen Menschen genutzt wird, mit der Folge, dass die Grenzen zu rein fiktionalen Beziehungen nicht mehr erkannt werden? Könnten mit Blick auf das noch lange nicht ausgereizte Potenzial einer KI, die auch ethisch verwerfliche oder inhumane Bedürfnisse befriedigen könne, unabdingbare soziale Fähigkeiten wie Toleranz, Respekt und Rücksichtnahme verlernt werden? Sollen Roboter durch ihre äußere Anmutung in der Lage sein, bei ihrem menschlichen Gegenüber – insbesondere Alten oder Pflegebedürftigen – Gefühle zu simulieren und emotionale Erwartungen auszulösen? Guskar-Weber beleuchtet das Potenzial und die Risiken emotionaler KI und plädiert für ethisch-moralische Standards bei ihrer Entwicklung und Nutzung." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The coming of artificial intelligence (AI), dramatically signaled by the release of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022, sparked varied reactions and questions in various sectors and industries, including the field of education. Prior to this, AI technology has been gaining ground with its various applica
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tions, yet it still managed to take many by surprise. After the initial panic and apprehension about the use of these increasingly powerful technologies, discussions have begun as to how to effectively manage the threats and maximize the affordances brought by these rapidly emerging developments. The growing discourse and literature on this subject confirm the relevance and urgency of this issue today. Gathering the concerns and insights from these ongoing conversations, this paper aims to explore the challenges and opportunities brought by AI to education in general and to religious education in particular, with the aim of naming potential risks and identifying possible areas that can be harnessed by religious educators today." (Abstract)
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"This study delves into the intricate realm of gender and artificial intelligence (AI) through an examination of DALL-E 2-generated images within the Indian context. It takes a methodological approach that focuses on assessing images generated in response to prompts such as ‘a farmer cultivating c
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rops in rural Punjab’ to reveal the dynamics of gender performativity within professions. The generated images were thematically analysed using dress as a phenomenon to visualise Indian man, Indian woman and ambiguous Indian. The study concludes that DALL-E 2 reinforces the binary gender norms, leaving no space for ambiguous Indian in its responses. Although the generated image is centred on female professions, it is frequently employed in ‘male’ surroundings. Hindu religious symbols are largely used among male professionals to denote religious and gender predominance. A brown complexion reflects demographics regardless of gender, while female professionals tend to undergo a process of aesthetic enhancement, suggesting societal beauty standards." (Abstract)
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"Was bedeutet die zunehmende Nutzung Künstlicher Intelligenz für die Demokratie, für Offenheit und Vielfalt in der Gesellschaft? Wie gerecht entscheiden Algorithmen? Vielfach zeigt sich, dass KI-Anwendungen strukturelle Ungleichheit und bestehende Diskriminierungsmuster reproduzieren können. Den
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noch berge Künstliche Intelligenz sowohl demokratiegefährdendes Potenzial als auch Chancen etwa für die Bekämpfung von Hassrede im Internet oder für die politische Bildung. Der Band versammelt Perspektiven aus so unterschiedlichen Feldern wie der Antisemitismusforschung, der Psychologie, der Informatik, dem Journalismus, der Techniksoziologie und der bildenden Kunst. Aufgrund von Verzerrungen im Datenmaterial kann Künstliche Intelligenz etwa bei der Bewertung von Bewerbungen, Kreditwürdigkeit oder Prognosen zur erneuten Straffälligkeit zu diskriminierenden Entscheidungen kommen. Daher fordern die Autorinnen und Autoren gezielte Investitionen in politische Bildung und gerechtere soziale Strukturen. Diese seien nötig, um zu verhindern, dass Rassismus, Antisemitismus und andere Formen gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit in digitalen Räumen reproduziert werden, denn: Technische Systeme, so ihr Fazit, werden kein Problem lösen können, das im Kern sozial oder politisch begründet sei." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This engaging Handbook critically examines the moral opportunities and challenges surrounding artificial intelligence. It provides a comprehensive overview of the most pressing problems concerning this technology by drawing on a wide range of analytical methods, traditions and approaches. Advocatin
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g for a diversification of the study of ethics and AI, this Handbook covers the foundations of the field before delving into the challenges of responsibility, justice and authority in an AI-centred landscape. Chapter authors champion typically underrepresented or marginal traditions, including continental philosophy, indigenous cosmologies, queer studies, post-colonial theories, African philosophies, disability studies, and feminist ethics. Balancing legal and moral philosophies, the Handbook surveys the transformative present of AI, while also reckoning with the ethics of an increasingly inscrutable future." (Publisher description)
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"The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance explores the concepts, methodologies, and implications of collective intelligence for democratic governance, in the first comprehensive survey of this field. Illustrated by a collection of inspiring case studies and edit
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ed by three pioneers in collective intelligence, this handbook serves as a unique primer on the science of collective intelligence applied to public challenges and will inspire public actors, academics, students, and activists across the world to apply collective intelligence in policymaking and administration to explore its potential, both to foster policy innovations and reinvent democracy." (Publisher description)
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