Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Tech Elite's AI Ideologies Have Racist Foundations, Say AI Ethicists

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Here's the argument: "More and more prominent tech figures are voicing concerns about superintelligent AI and risks to the future of humanity. But as leading AI ethicist Timnit Gebru and researcher Émile P Torres point out, these ideologies have deeply racist foundations." The concept of TESCREAL stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism. "These overlapping emergent belief systems all trace their lineage back to the first-wave Anglo-American eugenics tradition, and underlying all is a kind of techno-utopianism and a sense that one is genuinely saving the world." What it means in practice, they argue, is that on this view, some lives are worth more than others, some cultures deserve more protection than others. It's important, argues Linton, "that the fantasies of the (white male) tech elite, which are built on racist foundations, don't eclipse the need for transparency, accountability, and preventing harm to actual present-day people."

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Last Updated: May 05, 2024 3:59 p.m.

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