Mind who’s testing: Turing tests and the post-colonial imposition of their implicit conceptions of intelligence

Abstract

This paper aims to show that dominant conceptions of intelligence used in artificial intelligence (AI) are biased by normative assumptions that originate from the Global North, making it questionable if AI can be uncritically applied elsewhere without risking serious harm to vulnerable people. After the introduction in Sect. 1 we shortly present the history of IQ testing in Sect. 2, focusing on its multiple discriminatory biases. To determine how these biases came into existence, we define intelligence ontologically and underline its constructed and culturally variable character. Turning to AI, specifically the Turing Test (TT), in Sect. 3, we critically examine its underlying intelligence conceptions. The test has been of central influence in AI research and remains an important point of orientation. We argue that both the test itself and how it is used in practice risk promoting a limited conception of intelligence which solely originated in the Global North. Hence, this conception should be critically assessed in relation to the different global contexts in which AI technologies are and will be used. In Sect. 4, we highlight how unequal power relations in AI research are a real threat, rather than just philosophical sophistry while considering the history of IQ testing and the TT’s practical biases. In the last section, we examine the limits of our account and identify fields for further investigation. Tracing colonial continuities in AI intelligence research, this paper points to a more diverse and historically aware approach to the design, development, and use of AI.

The poverty of ethical AI: impact sourcing and AI supply chains

“…Theorists of 'digital colonialism' have argued that technology companies in the US seek to exercise control over populations in the Global South by creating new forms of dependence through their ownership over digital tools and platforms (Avila 2020;Kwet 2019;Vesna 2023). This developed out of a broad scholarship that showed how technology embodies particular values which shape how we engage with it and perceive the world through using it (Fischbach et al 2023;Hollanek 2023). Renata Avila defines digital colonialism as "the deployment of imperial power over a vast number of people, which takes the form of rules, designs, languages, cultures and belief systems serving the interests of dominant powers" (Avila 2020: 1).…”