Safiya Noble – Algorithms of Oppression
In this article, Noble presents the underlying issue of Google’s search algorithm that contains elements of sexist and racist results when certain keywords are looked up. A prime example is the derogatory search results that appear when looking for women of color (most pertaining to the sexualization of them as well as overall pornographic fetishization of that group). She also brings forth another example of the difference in search results when looking up “three white teenagers” vs. “three black teenagers”, and how Google’s response to that backlash (as well as many others) has been discrete and somewhat unapologetic.
How can we as users of this search engine combat this type of oppression? Bring awareness of it to the masses?
Ruha Benjamin – Race After Technology
Benjamin presents the ever-present issue in the technology that we have created that is making it somewhat racist despite it being inherently an objective form. This is due to the fact that there are biases present in the creators, which in turn translate themselves into their creations. She presents the concept of the Jim Code (derived from the Jim Crow laws), where racist methods of oppression exist in the code that many of us end up using. She presents multiple examples of technology that utilizes that. When oppression thrives, retaliation by the oppressed will rise with it, and so she talked about the racial justice movement groups that have emerged to combat this phenomenon.
How can technology in the future be barred from the biases of their creators in order to create something more objective?
Lisa Nakamura – Laboring Infrastructures
VR is not something necessarily new in the industry, however, relative to other existing technologies it is still in its early stages of development, meaning no one really knows what powers it truly holds and how it will affect our future. And with that, many different kinds of experiments and tests have been done to test the capabilities of making a virtual space that distorts the user’s perception of reality, and with that comes artificially constructed empathy. Even with that, there’s an underlying issue of constructing these virtual realities to provide users an experience they would not have experience on their own, which is that many creators have taken upon themselves to simulate oppressive situations of the marginalized, without really taking into account the consequences of that.
What can be done to prevent these constructions of reality from going “too far”?