Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful (book presentation with Mirca Madianou)
Date: 28.03.2025 09:30 - 10:30
Lecture / presentation
Format: hybrid
Location: Milano, Italy
Event Fee: Free
Organizer(s):
PHILTECH Research Center for the Philosophy of Technology
With over 300 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and with emergencies and climate disasters becoming ever more common, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data are being championed as a force for good and as a solution to the complex challenges of the aid sector. Madianou’s book argues, on the contrary, that digital innovation, data and AI practices entrench power asymmetries and engender new inequities between the global south and north. Madianou develops a new concept, technocolonialism, to capture how the convergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures, state power and market forces reinvigorates and reshapes colonial legacies. The concept of technocolonialism shifts the attention to the constitutive role that digital infrastructures, data and AI play in accentuating inequities between aid providers and people in need and, ultimately, rich and poor countries.
Post created by: Lymor Wolf Goldstein