Ethics in Data Science: AI, Data, and the Coloniality of Power

Join us for a talk from George Fourlas, Ph.D., senior researcher at Security in Context, on " AI, Data, and the Coloniality of Power."

There is much to learn from recent shifts in the emerging labors that constitute machine learning (ML or, more popularly, AI), especially for those who are interested in inequality and the lingering influence of colonial imposition. Here, I focus on the problem of data quality in ML, which I will argue is, at its core, a problem of the coloniality of power. I use the case of Middle East and North African (MENA) populations, who are overdetermined by colonial power and simultaneously made invisible through that same apparatus, to advocate for a rethinking of data through participatory design that would ideally afford more accurate representations and resist inequities.

George Fourlas is a senior researcher with Security in Context. Formerly the SHIFT Endowed Associate Professor of Applied Ethics at Hampshire College, he has also held positions at Franklin and Marshall College, the University of Oregon, and Globernance (Instituto de Gobernanza Democrática). He is a co-editor of Radical Philosophy Review and the Senior Managing Editor of Global Insecurity, the Security in Context Blog. His book, Anti-Colonial Solidarity: Race, Reconciliation, and MENA Liberation is available now.