Abstract
Under the banner “AI (artificial intelligence) for good,” new technologies are becoming more and more central to the agendas of global and regional institutions, as technologies to be embraced and regulated at the same time. This is indicated by the 2018 UN Secretary General's Strategy on New Technology, and by the most recent European Commission proposal to regulate artificial intelligence systems. In this essay, I discuss how anthropology and its ethnographic method could contribute to our understanding of the AI-turn in global governance, by shedding greater light on the effects that the use of this technology has for society, the work of institutions, and the production and application of international law. I argue that engaging ethnographically with AI techniques and knowledge could also bring about a transformation in governance, policy-making, and anthropological theory.
Highlights
Under the banner “AI for good,” new technologies are becoming more and more central to the agendas of global and regional institutions, as technologies to be embraced and regulated at the same time
I discuss how anthropology and its ethnographic method could contribute to our understanding of the AI-turn in global governance, by shedding greater light on the effects that the use of this technology has for society, the work of institutions, and the production and application of international law
Artificial intelligence can be described and enacted in different ways: by computer scientists through technical and mathematical terms as computational processes, including those derived from machine learning, statistics, or other data processing; as an artificial neural network that can classify data and make predictions in ways that cannot yet be fully explained; and as the simulation of human intelligence whereby technology is refined in order to imitate human reasoning, problem solving, and decision-making
Summary
Under the banner “AI (artificial intelligence) for good,” new technologies are becoming more and more central to the agendas of global and regional institutions, as technologies to be embraced and regulated at the same time. Machine learning technologies have already been incorporated into many UN initiatives, such as education, health, food delivery, peace, diplomacy, security, refugee management, humanitarian aid, human rights, environmental monitoring, sustainable development goals, and humanitarian crisis response.[7] These initiatives are turning to the use of “real time data” and “crisis mapping” to develop “quick and time-efficient policies,”[8] and are thereby refining ways that global diplomacy and international institutions relate to states, civil society, and the private sector.[9] This is occurring in a context in which more and more states are using new digital tools for systematically surveilling, documenting, and discrediting or intimidating human rights activists.[10] Another important actor in the AI-turn in global governance is the private sector, tech companies, both as regulators and perpetrators of human rights violations.
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