- Title
- The backroads of AI: the uneven geographies of artificial intelligence and development
- Creator
- McDuie-Ra, Duncan; Gulson, Kalervo
- Relation
- Area Vol. 52, Issue 3, p. 626-633
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/area.12602
- Publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Artificial intelligence is being reconfigured as a set of technologies that can address poverty with precision. The impacts of AI will both exacerbate and ameliorate the conditions of uneven development. Recent debates focus on the disruptive effects of AI, particularly to replication of development trajectories that have had success in reducing poverty. In this paper we further these debates by analysing the backroads of AI. The backroads serve as a metaphor for understanding the ways AI will travel from the sites of incubation to the frontlines of uneven development. We explore dialogues between AI and development in two arenas: the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation initiative (DIME) and the Government of India's national AI strategy, #AIforAll. We argue that both these arenas serve as hubs from which AI will travel out along the backroads to remote, poor, and fragmented polities. While the World Bank utilises AI as technology to empower experts and mobilise a techno-political authority, what we refer to as precision AI, India seeks to function as a second-tier AI hub, making AI cheaper and more accessible domestically and for other developing countries, what we refer to as populist AI. We conclude by discussing the interrelations of precision and populist AI along the backroads, and the potential of backroads research for mapping AI, uneven geographies of development and technology and the impacts of AI's disruptions at different scales.
- Subject
- artificial intelligence; development; India; technology; uneven geographies; World Bank; SDG 1; SDG 10; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1438335
- Identifier
- uon:40578
- Identifier
- ISSN:0004-0894
- Rights
- McDuie-Ra, Duncan; Gulson, Kalervo. “The backroads of AI: the uneven geographies of artificial intelligence and development”. Area Vol. 52, Issue 3, p. 626-633 (2020), which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/area.12602. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
Goal 1: No Poverty
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