AI, Power, and Inequality - The Social Dimension of Sustainability

Explore the social dimensions of sustainability and their endangerment by AI in this 40-minute conference talk from the 37C3 event. Delve into how AI relies on the global exploitation of both natural and social resources. Examine the need to address algorithmic discrimination, social selection, exploitation of digital labor, and the trend towards a new digital colonialism to achieve sustainable AI. Analyze the UN's sustainability goals, focusing on equality, anti-discrimination, access to education, and reduction of economic inequality. Investigate how unregulated AI systems contradict these goals, not only through biases and discriminatory effects but also through fundamental social and economic exploitation. Learn about the datafication of human thought, feeling, and action across all areas of life, and how economic power gradients between the Global North and South are exploited for data processing. Understand how many AI systems generate their intelligence by extracting human cognitive performance from digital interfaces. Discuss the use of low labor protection standards and wage levels in other countries by AI companies, resulting in illness and precarity for affected workers. Gain insights into viewing AI systems as socio-technical systems to develop better regulation and address rising global inequality and exploitation.

37C3 - KI – Macht – Ungleichheit.