Algorithmic racism: a decolonial critique Syed Mustafa Ali Computing and Communications Department The Open University (UK)
[email protected] ABSTRACT This paper begins by proposing a new theoretical construct for understanding processes of racial formation (or racialisation) within the context of Western historical experience in relation to the 'Other', viz. algorithmic racism, with a view to disclosing continuities masked by transitions between different conceptualisations (or framings) – that is, 'iterations' – of racism in different historical epochs, and a fortiori in the transition from modernity to the contemporary postmodern era. It is argued that in this context, the concept of an algorithm serves as an appropriate trope both metaphorically and metonymically in that that the 'informational turn' beginning in the 1950s, whose foundations were cybernetic, computational and communicative (Hayles 1999), has resulted in a purported shift from humanism to a posthumanism and/or transhumanism that, at least in some formulations, has been framed in algorithmic terms. On this basis, algorithmic racism is presented as a doubly appropriate means by which to expose the "dark postcolonial underside" underpinning and tacitly informing posthumanist and/or transhumanist discourse. Building on earlier critiques of information theory from critical race and critical theory of religion perspectives (Ali 2013, 2015) and critique of computing from a decolonial perspective (Ali 2014), this paper sets out to show how posthumanism and/or transhumanism can be understood as the most recent 'iteration' of the entanglement of race and religion constitutive of Western identity in the context of relations between (post-)Christendom and the Islamicate world, and how this entanglement is further entangled with the critique of humanism based on considerations of embodiment pioneered by early decolonial thinkers such as Césaire and Fanon and extended by Wynter, Gordon, Weheliye, Jackson and others. The nature of such entanglements will be unpacked and the ethical implications of such unpacking explored through a critical engagement with early works on posthumanism and/or transhumanism due to Hayles (1999, 2005) and Kurzweil (1999, 2005), and more recent works such as Geraci (2010), More and Vita-More (2013), Mercer and Maher (2014) among others. REFERENCES Ali, Syed Mustafa (2015) Orientalism and/as information: the indifference that makes a difference. In: ISIS Summit Vienna 2015 – The Information Society at the Crossroads, 3 - 7 June 2015, Vienna, Austria. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.3390/isis-summit-vienna-2015-S1005. Ali, Syed Mustafa (2014) Towards a Decolonial Computing. In Ambiguous Technologies: Philosophical issues, Practical Solutions, Human Nature: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Computer Ethics – Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE 2013). Edited by Elizabeth A. Buchanan, Paul B, de Laat, Herman T. Tavani and Jenny Klucarich. Portugal: International Society of Ethics and Information Technology, pp.28-35.
Ali, Syed Mustafa (2013) Race: The Difference That Makes a Difference. tripleC 11 (1): 93-106. Geraci, Robert M. (2010) Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hayles, N. Katherine (2005) Computing the Human. Theory, Culture & Society 22(1): 131–151. Hayles, N.K. (1999) How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kurzweil, Ray (2005) The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. London: Viking. Kurzweil, Ray (1999) The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. New York: Penguin. Mercer, Calvin and Maher, Derek F. (2014) Transhumanism and the Body: The World Religions Speak. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. More, Max and Vita-More, Natasha (2013) The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future. Edited by Max More and Natasha Vita-More. MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
