AI software/hardware as mind/body problem : global supply chains, shadow workers, and wasted lives

Čufar, Kristina (author)

Artificial intelligence (AI) and other algorithm-based technologies have become part of everyday life over the last decade. While AI holds amazing potential and has already contributed positively to the human condition, it is also subject to fierce critique as it may, for example, reproduce bias and social injustices or increase dystopic forms of surveillance. While most scholarly, regulatory, and ethical debates focus on AI software-related issues, AI hardware receives far less attention. Understanding AI as software, as an artificial mind, highlights only the supposedly new and exciting aspects of this technology and ignores the human and material costs of its fabrication. This is consistent with the traditional mind-body dualism, which prioritises mind over body and thus skews our perception of the problem. To counter the dominant narratives, this article proposes a concept of AI as hardware/software to broaden the scope of ethical and legal issues that ought to be addressed through AI regulation. A holistic and systemic treatment of the AI phenomenon robs it of its perceived uniqueness. Once the worldwide extraction of materials, labour, and data necessary to set up AI machinery is seriously considered, AI stands out as yet another instance of colonial capitalism.

• Language: English
• Keywords: artificial intelligence, ethics, human rights, colonialism
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PF - Faculty of Law
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: Str. 303-334, 360-361
• Numbering: Letn. 84
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-168360
• UDC: 004.8:17:342.7
• ISSN on article: 1854-3839
• DOI: 10.51940/2024.1.303-330
• COBISS.SI-ID: 225026563
• Publication date in RUL: 10.04.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Zbornik znanstvenih razprav
• Shortened title: Zb. znan. razpr.
• Publisher: Pravna fakulteta
• ISSN: 1854-3839
• COBISS.SI-ID: 223437312

Licences

• License: CC BY-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
• Description: Under the NoDerivatives Creative Commons license one can take a work released under this license and re-distribute it, but it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Programska/strojna oprema UI kot problem uma/telesa : globalne dobavne verige, delavci v senci in zavržena življenja

Abstract

Umetna inteligenca (UI) in druge tehnologije, ki temeljijo na algoritmih, so se v zadnjem desetletju pretežno že vključile v naša vsakdanja življenja. Čeprav ima UI izjemen potencial in je že pripomogla k izboljšanju človekovega položaja, je hkrati deležna ostre kritike, saj lahko med drugim reproducira pristranskost in družbene krivice ali okrepi distopične oblike nadzora. Večina znanstvenih, regulativnih in etičnih razprav se osredotoča na izzive UI na ravni programske opreme, pa je vidik strojne opreme UI pogosto prezrt. Razumevanje UI kot programske opreme, tj. kot umetnega »uma«, poudarja zgolj domnevno nove in vznemirljive vidike te tehnologije, pri tem pa prezre človeške in materialne stroške njene izdelave. To sovpada s tradicionalnim dualizmom uma in telesa, ki um postavlja nad telo in tako izkrivlja naš pogled na celoten problem.Da bi se zoperstavili prevladujočim narativom, avtorica predlaga razumevanje UI kot strojne in tudi programske opreme, s čimer se želi razširiti obseg etičnih in pravnih vprašanj, ki bi jih morali zajeti pri regulaciji UI. Celostno in sistemsko obravnavanje pojava UI mu odvzame njegovo zaznano edinstvenost. Ko resno upoštevamo svetovni obseg pridobivanja surovin, dela in podatkov, ki so potrebni za vzpostavitev UI, postane jasno, da je UI zgolj še en primer kolonialnega kapitalizma.

• Keywords: umetna inteligenca, etika, človekove pravice, kolonializem

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: J5-3107
• Name: Razvoj in uporaba umetne inteligence v luči negativnih in pozitivnih obveznosti države zagotavljati pravico do življenja