Gender as Escape Room – Artificial Intelligence as Catalyst

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2024.221

Keywords:

Digitalization, Discrimination, Gender, Intersectionality, Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence (AI) intensify the urgency to overcome altogether gender as existing racist, classist and patriarchal gender order. This means that AI acts as a catalyst to realize even more urgently an egalitarian gender order which is guaranteed on a legal realm since long. Thereby, AI makes it even more obvious that this endeavor – like in an escape room – can be successful only as a collective effort. The paper presents as examples important studies to demonstrate this interrelation and suggests an intersectional approach to gender which transcends binaries and stereotypical classifications. It discusses participatory and activist approaches and envisions justice based research on digitization and AI.

Author Biography

Waltraud Ernst, Johannes Kepler University Linz

Waltraud Ernst, Dr. phil., M.A., philosopher, has been senior researcher at the Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies at Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria since 2010. 2001–2003 she was a research fellow at the department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. 2004–2010 she was manager of the Center for Interdisciplinary Women’s and Gender Studies at the HAWK and University of Hildesheim. 2016 she received the Käthe-Leichter-Preis. 2018 she was visiting professor at the TU Dresden. Main research fields: conceptions of gender in technosciences (STS); feminist philosophy of science and epistemology; concepts, theories and methods of Gender Studies.

References

Allhutter, Doris (2021): Memory Traces in Society-Technology Relations. How to Produce Cracks in Infrastructural Power. In: Hamm, Robert (Hg.): Reader Collective Memory-Work. Sligo, Ireland: BeltraBooks, 426–452. https://collectivememorywork.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Reader-Collective-Memory-Work-ebook.pdf

Allhutter, Doris/Cech, Florian/Fischer, Fabian/Grill, Gabriel/Mager, Astrid (2020): Algorithmic Profiling of Job Seekers in Austria. How Austerity Politics Are Made Effective. In: Frontiers in Big Data 3, 1–17. doi: 10.3389/fdata.2020.00005

Barad, Karen (2015): Transmaterialities. Trans*/Matter/Realities and Queer Political Imaginings. In: GLQ. A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21 (2–3), 387–422. doi: 10.1215/10642684-2843239

Barad, Karen (2014): Diffracting Diffraction. Cutting Together-Apart. In: Parallax 20 (3), 168–187. doi: 10.1080/13534645.2014.927623

Barad, Karen (2007): Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, London: Duke University Press. doi: 10.2307/j.ctv12101zq

Bath, Corinna/Meißner, Hanna/Trinkhaus, Stephan/Völker, Susanne (Hg.) (2013): Geschlechter Interferenzen. Wissensformen – Subjektivierungsweisen – Materialisierungen. Berlin: LIT Verlag.

Benjamin, Ruha (Hg.) (2019a): Captivating Technology. Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life. Durham, London: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9781478004493

Benjamin, Ruha (2019b): Race After Technology. Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Cambridge/Massachusetts: Polity Press.

Bivens, Rena (2017): The Gender Binary Will not be Deprogrammed: Ten Years of Coding Gender on Facebook. In: New Media & Society 19 (6), 880–898. doi: 10.1177/1461444815621527

Buolamwini, Joy/Gebru, Timnit (2018): Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification. In: Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 81, 1–15.

Butler, Judith (2012): Kann man ein gutes Leben im schlechten führen? Dankesrede bei der Verleihung des Adorno-Preises in der Frankfurter Paulskirche am 11. September 2012. In: Frankfurter Rundschau 2012, 1–20.

Butler, Judith (2004): Undoing Gender. New York, London: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203499627

Butler, Judith (1991): Das Unbehagen der Geschlechter. Übersetzung von Katharina Menke. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Collins, Patricia Hill (2019): Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Crutzen, Cecile K. M. (2013): Nicht-menschlich ist auch Gender. In: Informatik-Spektrum 36 (3), 309–318. doi: 10.1007/s00287-013-0697-9

D’Ignazio, Catherine/Klein, Lauren F. (2020): Data Feminism. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: The MIT Press.

Ernst, Waltraud (2021a): Feministische Technikphilosophie. In: Grunwald, Armin/Hillerbrand, Rafaela (Hg.): Handbuch Technikethik. 2. Auflage. Berlin, Heidelberg: J. B. Metzler Verlag, 114–118. doi: 10.1007/978-3-476-04901-8_21

Ernst, Waltraud (2021b): Phänomene des Werdens. Intersektionalität, Queer, Postcolonial, Diversity und Disability Studies als Orientierungen für die Medienforschung. In: Dorer, Johanna/Geiger, Brigitte/Hipfl, Brigitte/Ratkovic, Viktorija (Hg.): Handbuch Medien und Geschlecht. Perspektiven und Befunde der feministischen Kommunikations- und Medienforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 57–72. doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-20712-0_6-1

Ernst, Waltraud (2020): Feministische Netzpolitik und Netzaktivismus. In: Thomas, Tanja/Wischermann, Ulla (Hg.): Feministische Theorie und Kritische Medienkulturanalyse. Ausgangspunkte und Perspektiven. Bielefeld: transcript, 522–537.

Ernst, Waltraud (2019): Technikverhältnisse. Methoden feministischer Technikforschung. In: Beate Kortendiek, Birgit Riegraf, Katja Sabisch (Hg.): Handbuch Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer, 447–455. doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-12496-0_41

Ernst, Waltraud (2014): Diffraction Patterns? Shifting Gender Norms in Biology and Technology. In: Ernst, Waltraud/Horwath, Ilona (Hg.): Gender in Science and Technology. Interdisciplinary Approaches. Bielefeld: transcript, 147–163. doi: 10.1515/transcript.9783839424346.147

Eubanks, Virginia (2017): Automating Inequality. How High-tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Fenstermaker, Sarah/West, Candace (2001): “Doing Difference” Revisited. Probleme, Aussichten und der Dialog in der Geschlechterforschung. In: Heintz, Bettina (Hg.): Geschlechtersoziologie. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 236–249.

Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Encarnación (2011): Intersektionalität. Oder: Wie nicht über Rassismus sprechen? In: Hess, Sabine/Langreiter, Nikola/Timm, Elisabeth (Hg.): Intersektionalität revisited. Empirische, theoretische und methodische Erkundungen. Bielefeld: transcript, 77–100. doi: 10.14361/transcript.9783839414378.77

IFG@Ars Electronica Festival (2020): How to Become a High-tech Anti-discrimination Activist Collective. https://www.jku.at/institut-fuer-frauen-und-geschlechterforschung/veranstaltungen-archiv/tagungen-des-ifg/ifgars-electronica-festival-2020-how-to-become-a-high-tech-anti-discrimination-activist-collective (06.06.2024).

Klipphahn-Karge, Michael/Koster, Ann-Kathrin/Morais dos Santos Bruss, Sara (Hg.) (2023): Queere KI. Zum Coming-out smarter Maschinen. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. doi: 10.14361/9783839461891

Krämer, Sybille (2015): Wieso gilt Ada Lovelace als die ,erste Programmiererin‘ und was bedeutet überhaupt ,programmieren‘? In: Krämer, Sybille (Hg.): Ada Lovelace. Die Pionierin der Computertechnik und ihre Nachfolgerinnen. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 75–89. doi: 10.30965/9783846759868_007

Leavy, Susan (2018): Gender Bias in Artifical Intelligence. The Need for Diversity and Gender Theory in Machine Learning. In: 2018 ACM/IEEE 1st International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE. doi: 10.1145/3195570.3195580

Lembke, Ulrike/Liebscher, Doris (2014): Postkategoriales Antidiskriminierungsrecht? Oder: Wie kommen Konzepte der Intersektionalität in die Rechtsdogmatik? In: Meier, Isabella/Apostolovski, Veronika/Starl, Klaus/Schmidlechner, Karin Maria/Philipp, Simone (Hg.): Intersektionelle Benachteiligung und Diskriminierung. Soziale Realitäten und Rechtspraxis. Baden-Baden, Wien, Zürich, St. Gallen: Nomos; Facultas.wuv; Dike, 261–290.

Lopez, Paola (2021): Bias Does not Equal Bias. A Socio-technical Typology of Bias in Data-based Algorithmic Systems. In: Internet Policy Review 10 (4). doi: 10.14763/2021.4.1598

Lorber, Judith (1999): Gender Paradoxien. Opladen: Leske + Budrich.

Mager, Astrid (2016): Search Engine Imaginary. Visions and Values in the Coproduction of Search Technology and Europe. In: Social Studies of Science, 1–23. doi: 10.3390/isis-summit-vienna-2015-T3.3009

Mies, Maria (1984): Methodische Postulate zur Frauenforschung – dargestellt am Beispiel der Gewalt gegen Frauen. In: Beiträge zur feministischen Theorie und Praxis 7 (11), 7–25.

Nakamura, Lisa (2014): Gender and Race Online. In: Graham, Mark/Dutton, William H. (Hg.): Society and the Internet. Oxford University Press, 81–95. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661992.003.0006

Noble, Safiya Umoja (2018): Algorithms of Oppression. How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press. doi: 10.2307/j.ctt1pwt9w5

Noble, Safiya Umoja (2013): Google Search. Hyper-visibility as a Means of Rendering Black Women and Girls Invisible. In: InVisible Culture 19, 1–23. doi: 10.47761/494a02f6.50883fff

O’Neil, Cathy (2017): Angriff der Algorithmen. Wie sie Wahlen manipulieren, Berufschancen zerstören und unsere Gesundheit gefährden. München: Carl Hanser Verlag. doi: 10.3139/9783446257788

Pflügl, Jakob (2024): Entscheidet die KI über Jobs? Höchstgericht lässt AMS-Algorithmus erneut prüfen. In: Der Standard vom 10.02.2024. https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000206845/entscheidet-die-ki-ueber-jobs-hoechstgericht-laesst-ams-algorithmus-erneut-pruefen (06.06.2024).

Prietl, Bianca (2019): Algorithmische Entscheidungssysteme revisited: Wie Maschinen gesellschaftliche Herrschaftsverhältnisse reproduzieren können. In: Feministische Studien 37 (2), 303–319. doi: 10.1515/fs-2019-0029

Ricaurte, Paola (2022): Ethics for the Majority World: AI and the Question of Violence at Scale. In: Media, Culture & Society 44 (4), 726–745. doi: 10.1177/01634437221099612

Sandoval, Chela (2000): Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Sandoval, Chela (1999): New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed. In: Wolmark, Jenny (Hg.): Cybersexualities. A Reader on Feminist Theory, Cyborgs and Cyberspace. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 247–263. doi: 10.1515/9781474473668-018

Spiel, Katta (2021): “Why are they all obsessed with Gender?”. (Non)binary Navigations Through Technological Infrastructures. In: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 478–494. doi: 10.1145/3461778.3462033

Suchmann, Lucy (2003): Figuring ‚service‘ in discourses of ICT: The case of software agents. In: Weber, Jutta/Bath, Corinna (Hg.): Turbulente Körper, soziale Maschinen. Feministische Studien zur Technowissenschaftskultur. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 65–74.

Van der Tuin, Iris (2014): Diffraction as a Methodology for Feminist Onto-Epistemology. On Encountering Chantal Chaawaf and Posthuman Interpellation. In: Parallax 20 (3), 231–244. doi: 10.1080/13534645.2014.927631

Yazdani, Nushin Isabelle/Zavala, Karla/Odendaal, Adriaan (2020): [D/R]econstructing AI. Dreams of Visionary Fiction. https://algorithmsoflatecapitalism.tumblr.com/zines (06.06.2024).

Cover Digital Gender

Downloads

Published

2024-06-19

How to Cite

Ernst, W. (2024). Gender as Escape Room – Artificial Intelligence as Catalyst. Open Gender Journal, 8. https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2024.221