Skip to content
blog vorhersagen
17 June 2021| doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4719467

Myth: AI treats everyone equally and makes predictions fairly

Algorithmic power is accumulated at the hands of data companies that re-enforce new colonial dynamics. By taking a look at the Cambridge Analytica Scandal and the so-called content managers based in Manila, the myth about equal treatment in AI and predictive analytics will be tested. I argue that the data companies aim to control and change the political and social climates of the distance geographies by using both the analogue and the digital infrastructures.

Myth

AI treats everyone equally and makes predictions fairly.

AI is expanding political hierarchies between the global north and the global south.

Watch the talk

Materials

Presentation slides
CORE READINGS

Algorithms of Oppression. (2018). NYU Press. Retrieved 21 April 2021, from NYU Press.

Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press.

Benjamin, R. (2020). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Social Forces, 98(4), 1–3. Read here.

Tuzcu, P. (2016). “Allow access to location?”: Digital feminist geographies. Feminist Media Studies, 16(1), 150–163. Read here.

Tuzcu, P. (2020). Cyberkolonialismus und dekoloniale feministische Applikationen. In B. Hoffarth, E. Reuter, & S. Richter (Eds.), Geschlecht und Medien – Räume, Deutungen, Repräsentationen (pp. 126–148). Campus Verlag.

About the Author

Pinar Tuzcu

Post-doc fellow at the Department of Sociology of Diversity at the University of Kassel, Germany

Pinar Tuzcu completed her PhD in 2015 at the Sociology of Diversity department at the University of Kassel. Between 2015-2019 she worked in different projects as a Post-doc researcher and held an interim professorship for the General Sociology department at the Justus-Liebig-Universität, Giessen from October 2019 to April 2020. Since April 2020, as one of the main applicants, she works as a coordinator of the project “Re:coding Algorithmic Culture” funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.


Why, AI?

This post is part of our project “Why, AI?”. It is a learning space which helps you to find out more about the myths and truths surrounding automation, algorithms, society and ourselves. It is continuously being filled with new contributions.

Explore all myths


This post represents the view of the author and does not necessarily represent the view of the institute itself. For more information about the topics of these articles and associated research projects, please contact info@hiig.de.

Sign up for HIIG's Monthly Digest

HIIG-Newsletter-Header

You will receive our latest blog articles once a month in a newsletter.

Explore Research issue in focus

Du siehst Eisenbahnschienen. Die vielen verschiedenen Abzweigungen symbolisieren die Entscheidungsmöglichkeiten von Künstlicher Intelligenz in der Gesellschaft. Manche gehen nach oben, unten, rechts. Manche enden auch in Sackgassen. Englisch: You see railway tracks. The many different branches symbolise the decision-making possibilities of artificial intelligence and society. Some go up, down, to the right. Some also end in dead ends.

Artificial intelligence and society

The future of artificial Intelligence and society operates in diverse societal contexts. What can we learn from its political, social and cultural facets?

Further articles

Three human silhouettes are depicted mid-stride, each comprising of a collage of hardware used to develop AI including circuit boards and CPU chips. In the background there is a black and grey gradient with smoke. Beneath the runners from the left, there are two rectangle panels which run across the image, one is red and the other is blue.

Brave new world of work? Narratives on AI and the future of work

A comparison between German and US-American public discourse shows how different narratives on AI shape the future of work.

The photo shows the entrance area of an event: while people wait and an older man speaks at a standing lectern in an open space symbolising democracy without borders.

Democracy without borders? Global citizenship between platform power, AI and the crisis of knowledge

A look back and ahead at ten years of constitutional thinking across state borders.

Playing cards on a table with a hidden ace, representing the high-stakes game of platform regulation under the Digital Services Act.

Cards on the table: Making sense of the Digital Services Act

This article revisits the origins and core mechanisms of the Digital Services Act and asks what lessons they hold for the upcoming review process.