Should we ask computers for consent?
“200 years ago, Siri would’ve been a Black woman,” Dr. Dori Tunstall asserted while responding to an audience member. The event, "Decolonizing Design: Designing for Liberatory Joy," featured Tunstall in conversation with author and designer George McCalman, exploring themes of equity and inclusivity in design. I arrived late to the discussion, having just come from a Black Girls in Art Spaces link-up at SF MOMA, and hurried around the corner to MoAD to catch the remainder of the talk. Although I caught the tail end of the talk, a few of Dr. Tunstall's points (paraphrased) resonated with me, which I will elaborate on below:
The underlying consciousness of creating tech is a slave/master dynamic that accelerates colonization
I see technology as a tool, an extension of a human that can speed up tasks. When Kim Kardashian made a promo video for Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, it became very clear to me the direction technology is going. Why are robots being made to resemble humans? To replace low-paid or unpaid domestic workers. Within the American capitalistic system ,those at the bottom carry the weight of everyone/everything on top. The insituion of white supremacy has an insatiable need for being a master and having dominion over all things- the economy, the people, the animals, the Earth. The US contains over half of the 1,000 hyperscale AI data centers, some of which can use up to 5 million gallons of drinking water per day. Alternatively we are slaves to technology, the average person spends 9 hours a day on their phone (last month my average was 11 hours between my phone and computer.)
Why is the ultimate tech a sex bot or a servant?
The investment driving robotics is largely split between the military and masturbation tools for men. I don’t subscribe to the belief that human males are inherently “more sexual” than females. Boys are conditioned, groomed and encourged to center their sexual desires and grow up with the encouragement to fufill those needs. Contrastingly girls are conditioned, groomed, and encouraged to dismiss their innate sexual desires and repress them until their husbands want to have sex. (I’m realizing that this angle is exclusive of those outside gender binaries; as a cishet woman, I’m commenting on what I know/experience.) With the rise in visibility and the platforming of incel culture/retorict (watch this video essay for further context), all of this is concerning to say the least.
What are the possibilities of tech that’s liberating?
Education is the first thing that comes to mind. Assitive technology is the second thing that comes to mind. After that I draw a blank— what do you think?