Artificial intelligence and consent: a feminist anti-colonial critique

Varon, J., & Peña, P. (2021). 

Internet Policy Review, 10(4).

https://doi.org/10.14763/2021.4.1602

Abstract

Feminist theories have extensively debated consent in sexual and political contexts. But what does it mean to consent when we are talking about our data bodies feeding artificial intelligence (AI) systems? This article builds a feminist and anti-colonial critique about how an individualistic notion of consent is being used to legitimate practices of the so-called emerging Digital Welfare States, focused on digitalisation of anti-poverty programmes. The goal is to expose how the functional role of digital consent has been enabling data extractivist practices for control and exclusion, another manifestation of colonialism embedded in cutting-edge digital technology.

Here is an excerpt:

Another important criticism of this traditional idea of consent in sexual relationships is the forced binarism of yes/no. According to Gira Grant (2016), consent is not only given but also is built from multiple factors such as the location, the moment, the emotional state, trust, and desire. In fact, for this author, the example of sex workers could demonstrate how desire and consent are different, although sometimes confused as the same. For her there are many things that sex workers do without necessarily wanting to. However, they give consent for legitimate reasons.

It is also important how we express consent. For feminists such as Fraisse (2012), there is no consent without the body. In other words, consent has a relational and communication-based (verbal and nonverbal) dimension where power relationships matter (Tinat, 2012; Fraisse, 2012). This is very relevant when we discuss “tacit consent” in sexual relationships. In another dimension of how we express consent, Fraisse (2012) distinguishes between choice (the consent that is accepted and adhered to) and coercion (the "consent" that is allowed and endured).

According to Fraisse (2012), the critical view of consent that is currently claimed by feminist theories is not consent as a symptom of contemporary individualism; it has a collective approach through the idea of “the ethics of consent”, which provides attention to the "conditions" of the practice; the practice adapted to a contextual situation, therefore rejecting universal norms that ignore the diversified conditions of domination (Fraisse, 2012).

In the same sense, Lucia Melgar (2012) asserts that, in the case of sexual consent, it is not just an individual right, but a collective right of women to say "my body is mine" and from there it claims freedom to all bodies. As Sarah Ahmed (2017, n.p.) states “for feminism: no is a political labor”. In other words, “if your position is precarious you might not be able to afford no. [...] This is why the less precarious might have a political obligation to say no on behalf of or alongside those who are more precarious”. Referring to Éric Fassin, Fraisse (2012) understands that in this feminist view, consent will not be “liberal” anymore (as a refrain of the free individual), but “radical”, because, as Fassin would call, seeing in a collective act, it could function as some sort of consensual exchange of power.

The info is here.

The Ethics of Sex Robots

Sterri, A. B., & Earp, B. D. (in press).

In C. Véliz (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of 

Digital Ethics. Oxford:  Oxford University Press.

Abstract 

What, if anything, is wrong with having sex with a robot? For the sake of this chapter, the authors  will  assume  that  sexbots  are  ‘mere’  machines  that are  reliably  identifiable  as such, despite  their  human-like  appearance  and  behaviour.  Under  these  stipulations,  sexbots themselves can no more be harmed, morally speaking, than your dishwasher. However, there may still be something wrong about the production, distribution,  and use of such sexbots. In this  chapter,  the  authors  examine  whether  sex  with robots  is  intrinsically  or  instrumentally wrong  and  critically  assess  different  regulatory  responses.  They  defend  a  harm  reduction approach to  sexbot  regulation,  analogous  to  the  approach that has  been  considered  in  other areas, concerning, for example, drugs and sex work.

Conclusion  

Even  if  sexbots  never  become  sentient,  we  have  good  reasons  to  be  concerned with  their production, distribution, and use. Our seemingly  private activities have social meanings that we do not necessarily intend, but  which can be harmful to others. Sex  can both be  beautiful and  valuable—and  ugly  or  profoundly  harmful.  We  therefore  need  strong  ethical  norms  to guide human sexual behaviour, regardless of the existence of sexbots. Interaction with new technologies  could  plausibly  improve  our  sexual  relationships,  or  make things  worse  (see Nyholm et al. forthcoming, for a theoretical overview). In this chapter, we have explored some ways in which a harm reduction framework may have the potential to bring about the alleged benefits of sexbots with a minimum of associated harms. But whatever approach is taken, the goal should be to ensure that our relationships with robots conduce to, rather than detract from, the equitable flourishing of our fellow human beings.

A pdf is here.

Whither Bioethics Now?: The Promise of Relational Theory

Susan Sherwin and Katie Stockdale
International Journal of Feminist 
Approaches to Bioethics 10 (1): 7-29. 2017.

Abstract

This article reflects on the work of feminist bioethicists over the past ten years, reviewing how effective feminists have been in using relational theory to reorient bioethics and where we hope it will go from here. Feminist bioethicists have made significant achievements using relational theory to shape the notion of autonomy, bringing to light the relevance of patients' social circumstances and where they are situated within systems of privilege and oppression. But there is much work to be done to reorient bioethics so that it is capable of addressing some current public health challenges. We argue that relational theory holds promise for beginning this work.

Here is an excerpt:

One reason to think that it is important to see feminist relational theory as the shaping sensibility through which other normative concepts and ideals can be understood is that a relational lens enables us to see the ways in which the very possibility of solidarity can depend on whether social, political, and economic circumstances make possible the choices and actions that are constitutive of solidarity. For example, drawing upon feminist conceptions of relational personhood and autonomy, author Susan Sherwin (2012) points out that the choices and actions available to individuals are bound up with the choices and actions of agents at other levels of human organization, such as international bodies, corporations, social groups, and governments. Since moral responsibility is limited to what agents actually can choose and do, moral responsibilities across all levels of human organization are intertwined and thus also relational.

The article is here.

Lolita understood that some sex is transactional. So did I

Tamara MacLeod
aeon.co
Originally published September 11, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

However, I think that it is the middle-class consciousness of liberal feminism that excluded sex work from its platform. After all, wealthier women didn’t need to do sex work as such; they operated within the state-sanctioned transactional boundaries of marriage. The dissatisfaction of the 20th-century housewife was codified as a struggle for liberty and independence as an addition to subsidised material existence, making a feminist discourse on work less about what one has to do, and more about what one wants to do. A distinction within women’s work emerged: if you don’t enjoy having sex with your husband, it’s just a problem with the marriage. If you don’t enjoy sex with a client, it’s because you can’t consent to your own exploitation. It is a binary view of sex and consent, work and not-work, when the reality is somewhat murkier. It is a stubborn blindness to the complexity of human relations, and maybe of human psychology itself, descending from the viscera-obsessed, radical absolutisms of Andrea Dworkin.

The housewife who married for money and then fakes orgasms, the single mother who has sex with a man she doesn’t really like because he’s offering her some respite: where are the delineations between consent and exploitation, sex and duty? The first time I traded sex for material gain, I had some choices, but they were limited. I chose to be exploited by the man with the resources I needed, choosing his house over homelessness. Lolita was a child, and she was exploited, but she was also conscious of the function of her body in a patriarchal economy. Philosophically speaking, most of us do indeed consent to our own exploitation.

The info is here.

Social Media as a Weapon to Harass Women Academics

George Veletsianos and Jaigris Hodson
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published May 29, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Before beginning our inquiry, we assumed that the people who responded to our interview requests would be women who studied video games or gender issues, as prior literature had suggested they would be more likely to face harassment. But we quickly discovered that women are harassed when writing about a wide range of topics, including but not limited to: feminism, leadership, science, education, history, religion, race, politics, immigration, art, sociology and technology broadly conceived. The literature even identifies choice of research method as a topic that attracts misogynistic commentary.

So who exactly is at risk of harassment? They form a long list: women scholars who challenge the status quo; women who have an opinion that they are willing to express publicly; women who raise concerns about power; women of all body types and shapes. Put succinctly, people may be targeted for a range of reasons, but women in particular are harassed partly because they happen to be women who dare to be public online. Our respondents reported that they are harassed because they are women. Because they are women, they become targets.

At this point, if you are a woman reading this, you might be nodding your head, or you might feel frustrated that we are pointing out something so incredibly obvious. We might as well point out that rain is wet. But unfortunately, for many people who have not experienced the reality of being a woman online, this fact is still not obvious, is minimized, or is otherwise overlooked. To be clear, there is a gendered element to how both higher education institutions and technology companies handle this issue.

The article is here.

Thus Spoke Jordan Peterson

David Livingstone Smith and John Kaag
Foreign Policy
Originally published April 4, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Peterson’s philosophy is difficult to assess because it is constructed of equal parts apocalyptic alarm and homespun advice. Like the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, whom he cites as an intellectual influence, Peterson is fond of thinking in terms of grand dualities — especially the opposition of order and chaos. Order, in his telling, consists of everything that is routine and predictable, while chaos corresponds to all that is unpredictable and novel.

For Peterson, living well requires walking the line between the two. He is hardly the first thinker to make this point; another of his heroes, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, harking back to the ancient Greeks, suggested that life is best lived between the harmony of Apollo and the madness of Dionysus. But while Peterson claims both order and chaos are equally important, he is mainly concerned with the perils posed by the latter — hence his rules.

In his books and lectures, Peterson describes chaos as “feminine.” Order, of course, is “masculine.” So the threat of being overwhelmed by chaos is the threat of being overwhelmed by femininity. The tension between chaos and order plays out in both the personal sphere and the broader cultural landscape, where chaos is promoted by those “neo-Marxist postmodernists” whose nefarious influence has spawned radical feminism, political correctness, moral relativism, and identity politics.

At the core of Peterson’s social program is the idea that the onslaught of femininity must be resisted. Men need to get tough and dominant. And, in Peterson’s mind, women want this, too. He tells us in 12 Rules for Life: “If they’re healthy, women don’t want boys. They want men.… If they’re tough, they want someone tougher. If they’re smart, they want someone smarter.” “Healthy” women want men who can “outclass” them. That’s Peterson’s reason for frequently referencing the Jungian motif of the hero: the square-jawed warrior who subdues the feminine powers of chaos. Don’t be a wimp, he tells us. Be a real man.

The information is here.

The Concept of a Feminist Bioethics

By Mary C. Rawlinson
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
(2001), Vol. 26, No. 4, pp 405-416.

Abstract

Feminist bioethics poses a challenge to bioethics by exposing the masculine marking of its
supposedly generic human subject, as well as the fact that the tradition does not view women's
rights as human rights. This essay traces the way in which this invisible gendering of the
universal renders the other gender invisible and silent. It shows how this attenuation of the
human in `man' is a source of sickness, both cultural and individual. Finally, it suggests several
ways in which images drawn from women's experience and women's bodies might contribute
to a constructive rethinking of basic ethical concepts.

The entire paper is here.

Artificial Wombs Are Coming, but the Controversy Is Already Here

By Zoltan Istvan
MotherBoard
Originally posted August 4, 2014

Of all the transhumanist technologies coming in the near future, one stands out that both fascinates and perplexes people. It's called ectogenesis: raising a fetus outside the human body in an artificial womb.

It has the possibility to change one of the most fundamental acts that most humans experience: the way people go about having children. It also has the possibility to change the way we view the female body and the field of reproductive rights.

Naturally, it's a social and political minefield.

The entire article is here.

DSM-5 Could Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health

By Elayne Clift
OpEdNews.com
Originally published on December 22, 2012

Here are some excerpts:

Feminist therapists are concerned for women in particular. Diagnoses such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Sexual Dysfunction have disparaged women and compromised them in troubling ways. For example, one expert says that BPD is almost exclusively applied to women because its symptoms relate to emotion and anger.   Some women with the diagnosis have histories of abuse and may have difficulty expressing anger "appropriately."   Such vulnerable women need to have their coping styles better understood before assumptions are made about their behavior.

Similarly, "sexual dysfunction" among women is often based on assumptions about what constitutes normal sexual behavior.   "If only performance failures or lack of desire count, the entire context of sexual activity becomes invisible and of secondary importance," says one member of the Association of Women in Psychology (AWP).

Another AWP member focuses on classism in psychiatric diagnosis.   "Poor women and women of color are particularly likely to be misdiagnosed or encounter bias in treatment," she says. "Therapists may interpret chronic lateness or missed appointments as hostility or resistance to treatment rather than the outcomes of unreliable transportation, irregular shift work, and unpredictable child care arrangements."

The entire article is here.

Catholic nuns group 'stunned' by Vatican scolding for 'radical feminist' ideas

By Reuters
Originally published April 20, 2012

The Vatican

A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns group said it was "stunned" that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty and social justice concerns and not enough on abortion and gay marriage.

In a stinging report on Wednesday, the Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had been "silent on the right to life" and had failed to make the "Biblical view of family life and human sexuality" a central plank in its agenda. It accused the group of promoting "certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

It also reprimanded American nuns for expressing positions on political issues that differed, at times, from views held by American bishops. Public disagreement with the bishops -- "who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals" -- is unacceptable, the report said.

The entire story is here.