Front and Back Covers, Volume 37, Number 1. February 2021

Abstract

Front and back cover caption, volume 37 issue 1ALGORITHMS & GOVERNANCEDetail from Myriad (Tulips) (2018), an installation by the artist and researcher Anna Ridler exhibited at AI: More than Human, Barbican Centre, London, UK (16 May‐26 August 2019).Each photograph that Ridler took is carefully affixed and hand‐labelled, forming a dataset of unique tulips that could also serve as a training set given to an algorithm from which to learn. It evokes, according to the author, the imperfect and arduous human labour behind machine learning (http://annaridler.com/myriad-tulips)Governance by algorithms often includes semi‐automatized decisions such as which families obtain resources, which neighbours get policed, or if a person can be released on parole or receive state support. In ‘algorithmic governance’, it is not only the often‐opaque algorithmic assemblage that informs decision‐making and intervention, but, most importantly, the original dataset and model that are used to train machine learning systems. The accuracy and representativity of these data often mirror existing and past forms of structural discrimination and inequality ‐ and create new ones. From these processes depend the prediction, production of knowledge, and ultimately the reality of the intervention. These systems, while undermining basic social rights, make it ever more difficult to legally challenge adverse decisions.In this issue, Maria Sapignoli offers some reflections on the possible effects that the ‘AI‐turn’ of global governance has for human rights practices, particularly in the United Nations. She argues that, beyond the policy and crisis‐intervention orientations of AI, we are witnessing the creation of new foundations for human belonging and being. Algorithmic interpretation and computational calculation contribute to the definition of the reality of intervention and to the institutional formation, inclusion and exclusion of ‘data‐identities’. All this is taking place through the automatization of decision making in the context of the increased interdependence between private and public sectors.Back coverBARBERS AND COVID‐19On 24 March 2020, the Prime Minister of India announced a nationwide lockdown to arrest the coronavirus's spread. The photo shows Abbas, a member of the Barber caste in a village in the Ernad Taluk of South Malabar, for the first time reopening and cleaning his barbershop on 22 May 2020 after lockdown. Before the lockdown, excepting Tuesdays, Abbas would routinely open his barbershop at 9 in the morning and close at 11 at night.He used to earn nearly 1500 rupees a day. During the lockdown, his earnings stopped entirely for two months. All Barbers of South Malabar were required to close their shops and were not allowed on‐site to clean or take any of their equipment. Barbershops were subject to severe restrictions even after lifting lockdown when he could no longer earn 500 rupees a day. In the initial months after the lockdown, Abbas found his regular customers reluctant to visit his shop.In this issue, Muhammed Haneefa argues that Barber misfortunes have been disproportionately affected during this epidemic by the systemic caste discrimination in this region. In South Malabar, 97 per cent of Barbers are compelled to follow endogamous marriage, which has weakened their resilience and has severely compounded their sense of doom, as all relatives work in the same barber trade with little or no employment opportunities elsewhere.