Today it’s four years since I presented at Raoul Wallenberg Institute on AI and Human Rights. Four years later my messaging is the same.
”To our huge disadvantage is the growing illusion of autonomy, and the invisibility of AI.”
”And core to the huge challenge of reasoning around accountability is the number of actors involved in realizing AI.”
”AI researcher Madelene Clare Elish has named this the moral crumple zone. The moral crumple zone protects the integrity of the technological system, at the expense of the nearest human operator.”
”While China is arguably a human rights menace, we have to be wary of continually pointing to their worst examples as the examples of what to avoid. Those worst examples are getting worse with time, and if we stay the same distance away from them, our human rights missteps are progressively getting worse as well. We need to NOT compare ourselves with China, but to actively proclaim where we draw the line and how we ensure we do not cross it.”
”We have a technology in the hands of a few, born in societies of abundance, and powerful enough to shape the outcome of lives across the planet.
This asymmetry of knowledge and power is a core challenge for human rights. An algorithm that is oppressive, racist, bigoted, misogynous and unfair can be all those things more efficiently than any human.”
”We are creating a more efficient version of the past instead of reimagining the future we want. There is something to be said for human inefficiency, the ability to pause and reflect, taking time to question and taking time to listen. Do we want to allow AI to erase the language, alphabets, culture and stories of poorer countries?
Missing today are the real voices. The voices of the people who are closest to the true problems. People like Peter the maize farmer in Mozambique. The voices of the people living the struggles of being overlooked and excluded, the struggles that we are responsible for creating. Who were warning us of harms long before white academics acknowledged them. If we aren’t working together with them, we are yet again colonizing, occupying and deleting.”