Power

Lecture

This week's lecture is an exploration of the concept of power, relating it to responsibility.

Slides:

Transcript:

Reading

Required - Motivation

"Don’t ask if artificial intelligence is good or fair, ask how it shifts power"

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02003-2

This short article motivates the case for focusing on power dynamics, and how technology impacts them, rather than fairness or "goodness".

Also Required - Surveillance from Power

"Prison Tech Comes Home"

http://www.publicbooks.org/prison-tech-comes-home/

This article talks about a specific example of a technology being used to shift, or at least cement, a power dynamic. Here this is surveillance technologies being used to monitor by people in a position of power over others: landlords, schools, employers.

Optional - The Power of Big Tech

"The Grey Hoodie Project: Big Tobacco, Big Tech, and the Threat on Academic Integrity"

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.13676.pdf

This article is focused on the power of big tech companies, and draws analogy to the past behaviour of big tobacco companies to talk about how they might be misusing their influence.

Optional - Power Over the Global South

"The Global South is everywhere, but also always somewhere"

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3375627.3375859

This paper talks about how international discussions about policy and AI lead by powerful, predominantly Western countries leave out countries from the Global South.