Ethnographic artificial intelligence

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence research is seldom conducted ethnographically. Nevertheless, the field itself has a distinctive culture – an engineering imaginary within which ‘general intelligence’ is considered to be a phenomenon that can be both defined and tested by reference to some universal (probably mathematical) standard. This paper describes a research agenda that sets out to question those assumptions, through a programme of ethnographic field work, collaborating with computer scientists and educators in several countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Artificial intelligence
• critical technical practice
• human-computer interaction
• cognitive variations
• broad learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I am indebted to Rachel Adams for suggesting the comparison of artificial intelligence to egwugwu, which is to be developed further in her own forthcoming book.

2 As each door is opened in turn, the hidden chess-player slides to the other side, in the same manner as when stage magicians demonstrate that they have sawn an assistant in half.

3 https://www.aisb.org.uk/events/loebner-prize

4 The social implications and limitations of such tests are explored with far greater detail and sophistication by Harry Collins (2018).

5 In addition to the question of surprise, it is necessary to remember that one person’s signal is another person’s noise. Noise is surprising, but not valuable unless it can be related to what we know.

6 And indeed, some earlier AI research, including the pioneering work of David MacKay’s father Donald MacKay, who offered a stringent critique of the ‘merchants of automata’ in his 1954 address to the International Congress of Psychology (MacKay 1956).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alan F. Blackwell

Alan F. Blackwell is Professor of Interdisciplinary Design at the University of Cambridge, with degrees in engineering, computer science and psychology. He founded the Crucible Network for Research in Interdisciplinary Design, and is currently director of Cambridge Global Challenges, a Strategic Research Initiative of the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of Darwin College, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.