Governing for Humans: A people-centred vision for AI & the internet

A CAMRI Research Seminar with Dr Vincent Obia (University of Sheffield)

About

In whose vision of technology are we living? Available evidence suggests that we are living in a vision conjured by Big Tech conglomerates, a vision enabled by the prevailing regulatory architecture. From Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act to AI policies in Africa and across the world, governance instruments have propped up a vision for technology that makes it possible for a few Big Tech executives to wield unprecedented power and shape the digital ecosystem in their interests. Underpinning this vision is the belief that all human data is available for extraction at scale, the march towards superintelligence cannot be questioned, and unchecked AI expansion is ideal and should be left unregulated, even if it destroys our environment and intensifies exploitative labour and structural inequalities. This vision underscores how our social realities are being constituted in service of the mould created by Big Tech executives. But crucially, it also reveals the ways in which governance can be used to propel a different vision of technology that works for humans.

This is what I attempt in my talk, for which I draw from my research into platform governance and AI policy across Africa to highlight regulatory imaginaries conceived by stakeholders who I have engaged with in my tour of the continent. My reflection highlights how these imaginaries intersect with governance principles in other parts of the world in order to shape norms and policies that challenge Big Tech’s hegemonic vision and reinstate agency for people, movements, and communities. I apply notions of sovereignty, decoloniality, and participation to define a vision of technology and AI based on the collective and the pluriversal, even more so for global majority countries that are at risk of having their digital futures decided upon by corporate actions and governance frameworks in rich nations. These form the foundation of my argument on the need for governance mechanisms defined by a people-centred vision to reshape the evolution of new media technologies.