Abstract
The current design of the technologies of 4IR are designs chiefly underpinned by the individualist values often associated with Western value orientations and guided by a democratic ethos that predominates in the West. In addition, the values associated with a Confucian1 value orientation are also strongly represented in the design of AI technologies. It is my contention that the designs of AI technologies emanating from countries like China are guided by the autocratic political ethos that predominates there. I show that these values and political orientations sit in an uneasy tension with the Afrocentric value orientation of communitarianism, a value orientation that is admittedly not limited to Africa but one that I assert is reasonable to associate with Africa. If this is right, it seems to me that the risk of a technological colonialism in the design of AI is a present one. In order to mitigate this risk, I make a case for the view that there should be a value change in the design of AI technology. I argue that AI should be designed with a sensitivity to selected values emanating from Afro-communitarianism, Western individualism, and Chinese Confucianism to avoid technological colonialism and its negative effects.
This research contributes to the literature on AI ethics as it highlights aspects of technological design that have received less attention, including the aspect of possible cultural value colonialism through technology transfer. This research also lays the foundation for further research on the values embedded in technology during the design stage and the values embodied by technology at the post-design stage. In the first chapter, I analyse the issue of technological colonialism. I discuss what other theorists conceive this issue to be. In chapter two, I discuss the values embedded in AI using two examples of this technology, AI sex robots from the West (Euro-America and the United Kingdom) and AI facial recognition technology from the East (China). In chapter three, I discuss how technology transfer can lead to techno-colonialism in the sense in which I conceive of it – as cultural value colonialism – in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. The
1 In the introduction, I highlight the values that form Western value orientation, Confucian value orientation, and Afro-communitarian value orientation. While in the second chapter of this dissertation, I explain these values clearly.
concluding chapter reinforces the significance of my project and suggestions for further research.