95. Power After AI: Governmentality in the Age of Intelligent Machines
Fenwick McKelvey, Concordia University (Montreal, CANADA); Jonathan Roberge, Institut national de la recherche scientifique; Sophie Toupin, Concordia University (Montreal, CANADA)
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês
The deluge of statements about ethical AI misses a larger structural turn, the presumption and legitimation of black-boxed decision-making as an increasingly preferred means of governing. Witnessing this growing international turn implies that AI is considered as an idealized solution to social, communicative, and political concerns. The active production of AI as a regulatory tool has however often-dire consequences on poor, precarious, vulnerable and racialized populations in both the global south and north in addition to having deleterious impact on the environment. Governmentality is both a regime of legitimation that has led to the massive investment in algorithmic regulation as well as a means to address the complex interactions between states, civil society and common sense to authorize these applications. To cut through industry, government and media hype critical approaches to power and governmentality are necessary to offer a guide on how to reconfigure AI.
We invite papers that critically address the historical and epistemic perspectives on AI, ethnographic and practice-based research in addition to speculative and experimental engagements to reconfigure and rethink AI both in the south and north. We seek critical reflection a) on the turn toward AI within corporations, governments, and NGOs as well as comparative works articulating the national or regional variances in AI deployment; b) on how AI solutions is proposed as a cost-saving measure, increasing efficiency, curbing corruption in refugee camps, police services, judicial systems, among others; and c) on speculative and experimental perspectives and practices such as indigenous, decolonial and from the south. Submissions from participants in the global South are particularly welcome.
