The (Un)bearable Whiteness of AI Ethics

Syed Mustafa Ali, Beáta Paragi, Angela C. Daly, Adela Gjorgjioska, Luke Hespanhol, Xaroula Kerasidou, Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui, Oluyinka Oyeniji, Ana Tomičić

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This chapter aims to explore the complexities and limitations of AI ethics, with a particular focus on how this field is entangled with whiteness. The authors examine the ways in which AI ethics has been used as a tool to maintain and expand dominant power, as well as to displace questions of ‘whether or not’ and ‘for the benefit of whom’ with questions of ‘how’, thereby perpetuating systemic inequalities through a process of discursive masking. The chapter begins by exploring the concept of “bearability” in relation to whiteness. It then goes on to discuss the implications of such bearability for AI ethics. The authors question the efficacy of current efforts to offer alternative bottom-up and ‘pluriversal’ approaches to AI ethics, respectfully suggesting that such approaches might amount to little more than regional dialects within a global language (game) established by dominant power.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHandbook on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Editors David J. Gunkel
PublisherEdward Elgar Publishing
Chapter15
Pages218-231
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781803926728
ISBN (Print)9781803926711
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Jul 2024

Keywords

  • AI ethics
  • Decoloniality
  • Hegemony
  • Neoliberalism
  • Power
  • Whiteness

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Computer Science
  • General Arts and Humanities
  • General Social Sciences

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The (Un)bearable Whiteness of AI Ethics'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this