CSGD Seminar: Shifting Power - Artificial Intelligence researchers’ perspectives from the margins

The growing global adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and their potential to revolutionise societies and economies have provoked widespread interest. For many AI researchers, developers, and practitioners in high-income economies, specifically in North America and Europe, AI ethics remains a theoretical pursuit often detached from the experiences of those most likely to be adversely affected by this technology.

 

There is much less visibility and surfacing of perspectives of AI researchers living and working in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs). Such countries are often viewed as potential loci for AI initiatives aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and their viewpoints are sought as partners in such initiatives. Still, research indicates that the negative impacts of AI are likely to be more keenly felt in regions of the world that are globally minoritised and peripheralised.

 

This lecture will explore the conceptualisations of perspectives on ‘harm’ and the impacts of AI on society among AI researchers, developers and practitioners from LMICs who study, develop or use AI in their professions. We will present the interim findings of in-depth interviews with these participants from across several continents whose unique perspectives are invaluable in understanding the impacts of AI, and discuss how their geographies, values and beliefs may influence their conceptualisations of the impacts of AI.

 

Speaker bio

 

Dr Venetia Brown is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in mixed-methods research and AI and Education at the Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University. Her background is in educational technologies, distance education, language learning, and sociolinguistics. Currently, she is the qualitative lead on a UKRI-funded project researching Artificial Intelligence and justice. In particular, she is interested in the educational experiences and beliefs of AI researchers and the role of their background and culture in their perceptions of AI and its potential impacts.

 

Register for the seminar.