Abstract
This commentary is a response to ‘More than Skin Deep’ by Shelley M. Park (Park, More than skin deep: A response to “The Whiteness of AI”, Philosophy & Technology, 2021), and a development of our own 2020 paper ‘The Whiteness of AI’. We aim to explain how representations of AI can be varied in one sense, whilst not being diverse. We argue that Whiteness’s claim to universal humanity permits a broad range of roles to White humans and White-presenting machines, whilst assigning a much narrower range of stereotypical roles to people of colour. Because the attributes of AI in the popular imagination, such as intelligence, power and passing as human, are associated by the White racial frame with Whiteness, AI is cast predominantly as White. Following Sparrow (Science, Technology, & Human Values 45:538–560, 2020), we suggest this presents a dilemma for those creating or representing AI. We discuss three possible solutions: avoiding anthropomorphisation, explicitly critiquing racial role-typing, and representing powerful AI as non-White.
Highlights
In her commentary ‘More than Skin Deep’, Shelley M
Park makes three important points: first, that gender interplays with Whiteness in the construction, representation, marketing, and functionality of AI systems; second, that there are many different ways in which Whiteness is scripted in portrayals and instantiations of AI; and third, that White racial framing exceeds White casting and cannot be undone by more diverse and inclusive hiring in the mainstream culture industry (Park, 2021)
Building on Robert Sparrow, we argue that this poses a dilemma for AI engineers and roboticists who wish to address this lack of diversity, and examine three potential solutions
Summary
Park notes that White AI systems, whether in fiction or as anthropomorphic robots, have a wide variety of attributes, from the cuteness of the Pepper robots to the menace of the Terminator. As noted in our previous papers (Cave, 2020; Cave & Dihal, 2020), this mythology associates AI with intelligence and inventiveness, power and generality—the ability to become anything These are all regarded by the White racial frame as distinctively White attributes When machines with these attributes are built or portrayed, they are racialised overwhelmingly as White, with other groups represented only in limited, stereotypical ways This is exemplified in the 2014 film Ex Machina, which depicts three female AIs in a blatant racial hierarchy. Ava is portrayed as intelligent, eloquent, creative and powerful—attributes the White racial frame associates with Whiteness Her portrayal as a doe-eyed White beauty is intimately bound up with her presentation as fully human, even whilst she is a machine. Whilst three androids are presented, the White racial frame permits only one to be fully human-like AI
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