Short Abstract

The panel interrogates key considerations shaping AI regulations in the countries of the global south. Framing AI regulations, without an epistemic reimagination of technology and its relationship with development, raises questions about their normative and developmental effectiveness.

Description

The panel will focus on two broad approaches: ethical determinism and tech-solutionalism. Ethical determinism is the idea that AI governance is derived from ethical guidelines, while tech solutionism assumes technology to have solutions to all socio-economic and cultural challenges. The tech-solutionist approach, at least in part, is rooted in the colonial and post colonial legacies, especially the impact of these legacies on the imagination of technology as a force of socio-economic transformation. But framing AI regulations uncritically underplays an entire gamut of social, political, and cultural factors that shape the interplay between technology and governance. It also side-steps the unequal conditions in the production and deployment of AI technology and the unequal voice and power relations in shaping guidelines. The panel will interrogate the different imaginations and conceptions that go into framing AI governance guidelines in terms of the burdens and costs they potentially impose on the global south. To examine such epistemic contestations, the panel invites both theoretical works looking at developments and regulations in AI, as well as empirical works looking at the specific AI regulations. It will further ask what alternative imaginations, social and political processes, and values can shape it for a just, equitable and sustainable future. Papers interested in exploring the different meanings of technology and structures in which these meanings are constituted and contested are also welcome. Finally the panel invites papers that make a critical foray into the various actors, institutions, and networks that should play a critical role in shaping regulations.

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