Workshop: 4IRAI and the ethics of care in Africa

Introductory Workshop within the framework of the HUMA initiative

What is the social and ethical life of algorithms and AI machines? Who is coding, for whom, in the interest of what, and what are the ethical principles that underpin machine learning and the work of coders? What regulatory and policy frameworks are African countries and communities putting in place preserve life, protect human dignity, eliminate bias and safeguard sovereignty. How can the African experiential be computerised? The fusion between the human body, new technologies and the experience of being human requires critical questions on what kinds of technologies are being humanised, what kind of human (and life) is being coded into technologies and rendered technological, how technologies are rendering or articulating the human (life) experience, what kind of life is left behind or rendered invisible/precarious, and how to render technologies more ethically liveable. The hospital is where these abstractions come into concrete manifestations, illustrating the life-and-death consequences of these dynamics, and thus bringing science and government closer to people, society and everyday life. The hospital is taken as a location from which to think through the ethical quandaries of digital life, being and institutionalised care, as the continent understandably rushes to embrace new technologies in its project to decolonise progress and suffering. We ask intriguing questions about entanglements of AI and persistent modes of care, being and solidarity that have come to define what it means to be human. What is the ethical life of algorithms? How will AI change our relationship with ethics, care and hospitals? How will it affect our ideas about what it means to be well, disease free, hospitalised and cared for? How is society grappling with new digital health technologies and the issues that arise with these such as medical misinformation? How are new technologies changing the work and training of health professionals?

This is a Pan African project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York with support from the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the University of Cape Town. It involves researchers from and working on the African continent and its Diaspora. The objective of this first meeting is to present and showcase the work of HUMA and to network with researchers doing related work on hospitals, technology, AI, ethics, and care.

Zoom Link: https://uct-za.zoom.us/j/91438989727 [Meeting ID: 914 3898 9727] No pre-registration is required.

Please find the workshop abstract and programme here. For further inquiries on HUMA events, contact: huma@clutteruct.ac.za

Veranstaltung übernehmen als iCal