Quests for innovation, particularly technological innovation, seem to always be closely tied to different systems of ideas and ideals. Artificial intelligence in particular is bound up in narratives and theories of progress, prosperity, and the superiority of the human race. Many of these ideologies influence public policy and even geopolitical relations. The “Co-Opting AI: Ideology” event set out to examine how these ideals fuel the rise of AI, how they are bound up in histories of rule making, counting, and bureaucracy, how they are built on Western ontologies and perpetuate Western power structures.

Anna Lauren Hoffmann is an Assistant Professor with The Information School at the University of Washington. Her writing on data, technology, and ethics has appeared in New Media & Society, Information, Communication, & Society, The Library Quarterly, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.

Sabelo Mhlambi is a researcher at the Berkman-Klein Center and Carr Center for Human Rights whose work focuses on the intersection of human rights, ethics, and technology. In particular, Mhlambi’s research examines the human rights implications of algorithmic technology and proposes a new ethical framework for governing the creation and use of AI for maximizing public good. Mhlambi’s work expands on the conversation around ethics and AI by introducing non-Western frameworks for examining the effects of automated decision-making technology. Mhlambi’s work is also supplemented by more than a decade building large-scale software, open-source software, and content recommendation systems.

Ahmed Ansari is an Industry Assistant Professor in the Integrated Digital Media program at NYU Tandon. His work and research situates itself at the intersection of design studies, critical cultural studies, and the philosophy of technology, with interests in decolonising knowledge production in design and thinking around how technologies can intertwine with and develop through non-Anglo-Eurocentric knowledge systems and cosmologies. His area focus lies in South Asian cosmologies and practices and the history and philosophy of technology in the Indian subcontinent. He also works as an educational consultant for universities and has developed curricula for design programs in his home country, Pakistan.

The event was moderated by Mona Sloane and supported by NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, the NYU Center for Responsible AI, and the 370 Jay Project.