(Five-minute read) 

As long as there are human beings around there is no way to eliminate or even prevent it and before I write any more words on the subject I declare that I am a white human and it doesn’t matter what color, creed, culture, class, rich or poor if you talk about it you are racist.

Where to start?

The very mantra “Black lives Matter is in its self racist” as all lives matter. 

For thousands of years, most religions promoted a sort of “them versus us” mentality. Although both the Christian bible and the Muslim Koran advocate that we are all equal in the eyes of God, bar a select few, the vast majority of religions considered their adherents to be “chosen.”

Unfortunately, we have never “bought in” nor will we, into the notion of equality for all. 

Why? 

Maybe because we have (in our own minds, at least) suffered economically due to the efforts of others to secure equality for all; or because we simply refuse to recognize the right of all to ” life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. 

Racism might not exist as once it did in Colonial times when numerous wars were fought because of race. Today it remains virtually impossible to go a week without hearing about some sort of racially motivated attack.

So the whole point of this post today is to raise an ethical issue related to AI that is often overlooked when it comes to Racism. 

Although AI might be the single most tremendous technology revolution of our days, with the potential to disrupt almost all aspects of human existence it is and will widen inequalities the main reason for racism in the first instance – gaps of opportunity. 

So what is racism?  

~ Oxford Dictionaries Racism: The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

Racism and capitalism are good friends, dependant on one another. Now with Artificial intelligence industrial colonialism, we are witnessing it and hearing of it every day.

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It’s a shame to say that racism is rife in such a modern and progressive world, but it is and it can’t be fought by some UN declaration that is purely symbolic.

If we had an idea to work towards, that would bring us a whole lot closer to being able to live together racism would be diluted.

This is not possible as our social evolution has been far outpaced by our technological development which if left to its own development will systematically erase people of color from our vision of the future. 

Given that society has, for centuries, promoted the association of intelligence with white Europeans, it is to be expected that when this culture is asked to imagine an intelligent machine it imagines a white machine,” said Dr. Kanta Dihal, from the university’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI).

The ethical impact of AI.

Racism is now related to the generalization of specific characteristics to all the members of a race. Generalization is a key concept in Machine learning and this is especially true in classification algorithms.

People are categorized in one form or the other; this is a way of life and we have to live with it. Ultimately racism (as indeed all prejudice) is about fear, fear of the other, fear of difference.

If the data used to train the model are biased, the model will produce a biased result.

One day we may evolve past this ugly human characteristic but until then Big Tech and white culture as a whole examine their own uncomfortable complicity in creating the systems and structures that create two distinct camps: The oppressors and the oppressed, we are condemned to repeating the mistakes of the past.

Rather than pay lip service to the politically correct and moralize about race, the United Nations would do better to address the question of regulating the growth of Artificial intelligence as most of our current organizations are driven by people who are blind to the impact that race and racism are having on shaping, not just technological processes but also our lives.

People should be taught to unite on the values that they hold about life.

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So here we are some two hundred years on from the Tulsa massacre with a pandemic that is not racist, mortgaging our future to pay off the present, with a robot on mars looking for salt, while the planet is in Climate turmoil, facing a future that only artificial understands.

The Danger is obvious when it comes to AI. 

Technology itself is not neutral. 

Why?  

Because many of these systems we are developing are only looking at pre-existing data. They’re not looking at who we want to be … our best selves.

We can massively limit the amount of racism in our society, but this will never happen whilst governments simply say we are not racist. 

In tackling racism, one of the first tasks must be to disband all organizations that have been set up to deal with racism!

The importance of data collection and data organization will determine future racism.

Why? 

Because when these two actions are performed poorly, ethical and cultural biases can be encoded in the machine learning model. 

Up to now some of the perpetrators of the worst abuses of human rights have been allowed the loudest voice. 

Divisions over Zionism, reparations for slavery, and other issues seem insurmountable.

Any measures taken have to be reasonable and relevant to the world we live in today, because where white racism stops black/ Asian racism starts.

Today, refugees, migrants, and so-called “foreigners” have become some of the primary targets of hatred and racial profiling. There will be no telling what we will label Climate \Change migrators. 

We are rapidly approaching the day when an autonomous artificially intelligent may have to make ethical decisions of great magnitude without human supervision.

The UN used to recognize Zionism as being a form of racism until 1991.

If we can’t agree on how humans should act how will we ever decide on how an intelligent machine should function.

AI Racism, in my opinion, is inevitable.

Yes, or No:

Every person is entitled to human rights without discrimination. If you said yes, you’re definitely in sync with the modern age.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.