Forward Thinking: Can feminism fix the internet?

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From deepfakes to the fear of AI taking jobs, to the social media giants making money from abusive content, our technology dominated world is in a crisis – what are the solutions?

AI researcher Kerry McInerney applies a feminist perspective to data, algorithms and intelligent machines. AI-powered tech, and generative AI in particular, pose new challenges for cybersecurity. Kerry proposes a new take on AI, looking at how it can be used on a small scale, acknowledging culture and gender, tailoring the technology for local applications rather than trying to push for global, one size fits all strategies.

And in addressing corporate responsibility for Big Tech, Kerry discusses how tackling harassment online requires an understanding of the social, political and psychological dimensions of harassment, particularly of women in the wider world, as opposed to seeing this as a technical problem.

Dr Kerry McInerney is a research fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge, and the AI Now Institute.

This is the last of four programmes from the Oxford Literary Festival, presented by Nuala McGovern, produced by Julian Siddle.

Recorded in front of an audience at Worcester College Oxford.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the BBC World Service, this edition of the documentary podcast is the fourth of four programs.
0:05.6	Forward Thinking, we're here at the Oxford Literary Festival with the Telegraph.
0:09.2	I'm Nula McGovern. And my guest this hour is AI ethicist Kerry McInerney.
0:15.0	We will be taking questions from our live audience in the room and those who got in touch online as we discuss ideas that could transform our world and in the magnificent setting of this prestigious university that's almost a thousand years old, we're
0:35.4	going to discuss some very modern issues, the challenges posed by new technologies
0:41.4	and the possible solutions. I want to begin, Kerry, and welcome,
0:48.0	to ask you, how can feminism fix the internet?
0:54.0	What do you mean by that?
0:55.0	I would say that I don't think
0:57.0	feminism necessarily can fix the problems we see on the internet
1:01.0	because I think fix implies this quick one-off solution
1:04.1	that once we apply something everything will be okay and I think we see this
1:08.2	fix-it mindset in the tech industry broadly when we look at things like
1:12.1	de-biasing AI programs or trying to introduce
1:14.9	safeguards around internet platforms. But rather than saying feminism can fix the internet,
1:20.4	I do think feminism can transform it and that if we draw on feminist ideas
1:24.9	principles, knowledges, histories, we can use those to create an internet that is
1:30.2	safer and more equitable. But what do we mean about being safe online?
1:36.3	One way that I like to think about it
1:37.9	is where do you feel safe walking alone, for example,
1:40.8	if you leave your house?
1:42.3	The places where I think I feel safe walking alone
	...

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