Catriona Gray, Cohort 1, is taking part in an online webinar entitled ‘Are Emerging Technologies Colonial?’ at the University of Cape Town on Wednesday 29th November, 13:30-15:00 SAST (11.30-13:00 GMT).
Details
Amid celebratory discourses of techno-optimism, techno-solutionism, Fourth Industrial Revolution and calls for digital inclusion, this webinar considers efforts to foreground colonialism as a critical framework for thinking about new and emerging technologies. The panellists will explore the explanatory and political power of conceptual tools like ‘data colonialism’, ‘digital colonialism’, and ‘AI Colonialism’, all of which draw attention to the colonial and imperial constitution of data-driven technologies. They will consider the following questions regarding the coloniality of technological innovation. In what sense do data-driven technologies depend on and entrench historically colonial relations, outcomes, and institutions? Are there limitations to how these notions tend to be conceptualised, deployed, and illustrated? What are the distinct harms associated with the colonial constitution of AI and digital ecosystems and how are they distributed? What is the relevance and applicability of these concepts to Africa and the Global South? And most importantly, what does a politics of resistance entail? Are there historical and on-going modes of organising that suggest the possibility of alternative technoscientific futures?
The webinar is part of the Ethics Lab. For more information on The Ethics Lab, please see, https://neuroscience.uct.ac.za/research-research-groupings/ethics-lab.
