Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

Artificial intelligence are computer systems. They are designed to learn and carry out tasks in ways that imitate human thought and decision-making processes. In Race After Technology, Benjamin challenges the way that AI has been viewed as pure and independent of human bias. Instead, Benjamin argues, AI frequently reproduce the prejudices of its creators and the societies they inhabit.

Benjamin coins this term to describe the combination of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Critical Race Studies (CRS) that she uses to “examine coded inequity and our contemporary racial landscape” (34). This blending of critical fields demonstrates Benjamin’s interdisciplinary approach to her research. Benjamin shows that technology cannot escape the racial issues in our society.

An algorithm is a set of rules given to a computer governing its calculations or approach to solving problems. While algorithms are often understood as the basis for a computer to approach independent thinking, separate from human bias, Benjamin explains that the rules given to computers are often a reflection of subjective values. Algorithms reproduce these values, as with the Beauty AI contest that yielded overwhelmingly white winners.

Benjamin defines glitch in several ways: “a minor problem,” “a false or spurious electronic signal,” or a “sudden interruption or irregularity” (77). Although glitches typically indicate a minor lapse in an otherwise benign system, Benjamin argues that they signal a more serious issue with the broader system. Small moments of racism should be regarded not as glitches but as serious societal symptoms.

Chapter 4 begins with several definitions of “fix,” two of which are “to repair” or “to influence the actions, outcome, or effect of by improper or illegal methods” (137). By presenting definitions that are opposed—one positive, the other negative— Benjamin critiques tech fixes that aim to solve social issues but introduce other inequities.

Benjamin uses exposure to describe how surveillance technologies are designed to make Black and other marginalized individuals hypervisible to the government. Exposure also evokes camera film and the history of cameras being both poorly designed to photograph dark skin and adapted to make dark-skinned subjects easier to control, as in apartheid Africa.