Technology Questions
Given the explosions of generative AI across society, it is important to consider how Afrofuturist might think about the challenge of integrating technology into daily life. First, it is important to recognize we have already seen the impact of artificial intelligence systems in every life for some time. You can learn about some of the dangers experts have offered about this technology in Coded Bias, documentaries by Shalini Kantayya, or books such as Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya U. Noble. So, as William Gibson's famous quote goes, “The Future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”
For Afrofuturist, it is that distribution that has always been the key to understanding technology. Far from divorce from regressive and oppressive ideas of the past, Afrofuturism has always recognized how exploitation linked to capitalism origins is central to how technology is imagined. The goal of the machine mirrors the mind of those in power. The information that is collected in our digital economy and the algorithms that control that information seek to maximize the wealth of the owners of capital. While we have increasingly become an information economy, our understanding of labor and control has remained defined by the previous industrial economy.
The pandemic has caused the steady transformation to be questioned for the first time. Now knowledge workers who believe themselves immune to automation recognize how machine learning can be used to reduce their number. For Afrofuturist, emphasizing equity and preventing exploitation means that the demands on display in the current strike by writers and actors are crucial. They are asking that the substance of the intellectual process not be copied by AI programs that would produce a poor copy of their work. From the producer's standpoint, this means fewer writers. Why hire 10 writers when you can have an AI program produce a set of scripts that five writers can polish for a lower pay rate? Why hire extra when you can scan people and then use their digital proxy repeatedly?
Years ago, I predicted we would all probably start to pay to “dim” our digital self and prevent tracking and modeling. At the time, I was thinking about how easy it was for basic consumer tracking technology to learn so much about you. In the years since technology has progressed, we should ask ourselves what our data is worth and how to ensure its value is protected to benefit the individual and not the corporation. This will mean a fundamental shift in our the Internet operates. Since many of the systems we use allow for a freemium model that gives the consumer service in return for access to data, we will increasingly need to ask if the cost of the technology we are dependent upon needs to be considered a “public good” versus what represents corporate assets that can be exploited. This argument has been at the core of the net neutrality argument. We have yet to hit upon a standard that supports open access.
We all need to take more time to think about our digital experience and how that experience might be protected to help us keep our collective experience online and in real life as free and open as possible.
