The (Un)bearable Whiteness of AI Ethics

Ali, Syed Mustafa; Be‡ta, Paragi; Daly, Angela C.; Gjorgjioska, Adela; Hespanhol, Luke; Kerasidou, Xaroula; Kouadri Mostéfaoui, Soraya; Oyeniji, Oluyinka and Tomičić, Ana (2024). The (Un)bearable Whiteness of AI Ethics. In: Gunkel, David J. ed. Handbook on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., pp. 217–230.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803926728

URL: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/handbook-on-the-e...

Abstract

This chapter aims to explore the complexities and limitations of AI ethics, with a particular focus on how this field is entangled with whiteness. The authors examine the ways in which AI ethics has been used as a tool to maintain and expand dominant power, as well as to displace questions of ‘whether or not’ and ‘for the benefit of whom’ with questions of ‘how’, thereby perpetuating systemic inequalities through a process of discursive masking. The chapter begins by exploring the concept of “bearability” in relation to whiteness. It then goes on to discuss the implications of such bearability for AI ethics. The authors question the efficacy of current efforts to offer alternative bottom-up and ‘pluriversal’ approaches to AI ethics, respectfully suggesting that such approaches might amount to little more than regional dialects within a global language (game) established by dominant power.

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