Peace and Prosperity for the Digital Age? The Colonial Political Economy of European AI Governance
Emma Carmel, Regine Paul
Abstract
<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">We are Not</b> short of alarming accounts of the global power asymmetries and detrimental environmental, social, and political effects fostered and amplified by the production, design, and use of artificial intelligence technologies (AITs). From “surveillance capitalism” <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref66" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[66]</xref> , via the “black box society” <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref50" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[50]</xref> , “automated inequality” <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref22" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[22]</xref> , “algorithms of oppression” <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref47" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[47]</xref> to “extractive politics” <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[17]</xref> ; from the “Californian ideology” <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[4]</xref> of “Big Tech” in Silicon Valley to the world of start-ups and specialist public sector contractors, like Palantir and Clearview, scholars highlight a wild west of disruptive technological innovation that has gone largely untamed. The whole globe is embroiled in its production and effects while the costs of “externalities” are paid by others: through large-scale environmental degradation from rare metal mining <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[17]</xref> , intensive carbon consumption <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[19]</xref> , underpaid and underemployed click workers <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[3]</xref> , <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref58" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[58]</xref> , <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref61" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[61]</xref> , violations of privacy and data protection <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[5]</xref> , <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref48" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[48]</xref> , and the amplification of societal biases in automated decision-making (a useful collection in a 2021 special issue of it Fordham Law Review).