Cyberfeminism: Artificial Intelligence & the Unconscious Biases

 Hello Readers

I am Hinaba Sarvaiya and this blog is my thinking Activity task given by our prof Dr.Dilip Bars sir. This blog based on cyberfeminism Artificial Intelligence and the Unconscious Biases.

Cyberfeminism:-

Cyberfeminism is a feminist approach which foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be used to refer to a philosophy, methodology or community.[1] The term was coined in the early 1990s to describe the work of feminists interested in theorizing, critiquing, exploring and re-making the Internet, cyberspace and new-media technologies in general. The foundational catalyst for the formation of cyberfeminist thought is attributed to Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto", third wave feminism, post-structuralist feminism, riot grrrl culture and the feminist critique of the alleged erasure of women within discussions of technology.

Mia Consalvo defines cyberfeminism as:

-A label for women—especially young women who might not even want to align with feminism's history—not just to consume new technologies but to actively participate in their making;

-A critical engagement with new technologies and their entanglement with power structures and systemic oppression. (in "Cyberfeminism", Encyclopedia of New Media, SAGE Publications)

Prior to the advent of cyberfeminism, feminist study of technology tended to examine technological developments as socially and culturally constructed. One major argument was that technology has been positioned as part of masculine culture—something that men are interested in, good at, and therefore engage in more than women. Even though women throughout history have been active in developing new technologies, feminists have argued that technology has still been looked upon as a masculine creation. For example, although women had been involved in the creation and development of the computer, their contributions were largely marginalized, and their participation often ignored or written out of history. Therefore, feminists such as Judy Wacjman, a professor of sociology at the Australian National University in Canberra, and Cynthia Cockburn, an independent scholar and activist in London, argued that technology needed to be continually interrogated and re-conceptualized, and that women needed to become more active in technological areas as well.

Kriti Sharma takes:-

She has explained about biases in AI and also her personal experiences with AI. she aptly said what about the children who are growing in this world? If we see the robots like Alexa, Siri have female voices and what they have to do is be a obedient servant where we keep of ordering to order food, turns of lights, fans, sing a talk, talk to be being lonely etc. and when a child is working on the project the answers are mostly male. We also have male voice robots but they help in making decisions, handling business, salesforce like ROSS. The child's mind gets a framework of female voice working household work, being obedient and male voice taking decisions.

What happens when white designs technology and their racism is passed to AI.

She pointing towards the solutions for this major issues gives three points-

1. Be aware of our own biases

2. Make sure that diverse team is making technology

3. Give AI diverse experience and atmosphere to learn from.

Robin Hauser talking that...

We find biases in technology because humans are consciously and unconsciously biased and humans programme all shades of biases in technology. The reason is lack of foresight, malicious intent, using screwed data and loving their own biases.

Here she discussed ‘Tay’ and Tay tweets. Microsoft sent its artificial intelligence (AI) bot Tay out into the wild to see how it interacted with humans. Seeing how Tay had the “repeat after me” attitude, people started messing around and taught her inappropriate things such as “cuckservatism”, racism, sexually-charged messages, politically incorrect phrases, and even talked about the Gamergate controversy.