The proejct "another AI" builds on the work of a reading group, organized and run by DARC members and collegues (2022-). The group is now extended into a wider interest group at Aarhus University (2024), bringing together researchers from different departments and centres, working with computational practices of the Global Souh(s) (such as design, AI, Blochain technologies/crypto curencies, etc.).

From 2024, 'another AI' also became a research project within SHAPE - Shaping Digital Citizenship, as part of a wider group working on the theme of 'Inclusion'.

Another AI

Across scientific fields AI is implicitly understood as a Western phenomenon – applied e.g., in Western social media, building on Western use cases, and relying on notions of intelligence rooted in Western philosophy and science, and with historical ties to the development of a modernity intrinsically related to the colonization of the Global South(s). Big Tech’s use of the Global South(s) subjects and labor to both gather data and train models in unregulated settings is but one example of how these ties play out today. 

As a group, we broadly use analytical and experimental practices from the humanities and social sciences to develop understandings of AI in the Global South(s), and effectively assess the impact of AI in the context of democracy and colonial divides.  

Through analysis of the relations between modernity, democracy, colonialism, and cotemporary AI in the Global South(s), we interrogate how AI is imagined and applied as both an opportunity for innovation and a hinderance to de-colonial aspirations. The approach is experimental and interdisciplinary. Using field work, document analysis, and a strategic framework for democratic community engagement (from the project “Knowledge servers”), it brings together technology researchers and practitioners across disciplines and cultures/hemispheres. The aim is to collectively question the techno-, knowledge-, body-, and geopolitics of AI, to effectively assess contemporary AI policies, use cases, and designs; and to inform future design, use, and governance of AI in a de/colonial and democratic perspective.