Empowerment or warfare? dark skin, AI camera, and Transsion’s patent narratives

IF 4.2 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Information Communication & Society Pub Date : 2022-04-13 DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2022.2056500

M. Lu, J. Qiu

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引用次数: 2

Abstract

ABSTRACT Through document analysis and interviews, this paper examines the patent narratives of Transsion, a Chinese company dominating Africa’s smartphone market and a leading innovator in facial recognition technologies (FRTs) optimized for darker skin tones. We identify two major narratives concerning Transsion’s FRT patenting practice. First is ‘empowerment’, through which Transsion argues that there are ‘blind spots’ in conventional AI technologies and presents its AI camera as a remedy and an empowerment tool for dark-skinned users by ‘seeing’ their beauty. Second is the ‘warfare’ narrative, which is shaped by the heightening market competition and accelerating patent races among Chinese phone makers. As the battle for tech supremacy intensifies in Africa, Transsion expresses a strong sense of crisis and considers its FRT patents as ‘weapons of competition’ in preparation for a future smartphone warfare in Africa. This study makes two contributions. Empirically, through analyzing patents, we examine a relatively less-known Chinese tech company that has tremendous impact in the Global South. Theoretically, we interrogate the possibility of algorithmic empowerment against racist AI and technological independence through patents, although developing AI as weaponry, in the China-Africa context, also hampers the politics of decolonization.

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授权还是战争？深色皮肤、AI摄像头和Transsion的专利叙事

摘要通过文献分析和访谈，本文考察了Transsion的专利叙述。Transsion是一家主导非洲智能手机市场的中国公司，也是针对深色肤色优化的面部识别技术的领先创新者。我们确定了关于Transsion的FRT专利实践的两个主要叙述。首先是“赋权”，Transsion认为传统的人工智能技术存在“盲点”，并将其人工智能相机作为一种补救措施和赋权工具，通过“看到”深色皮肤用户的美丽。其次是“战争”叙事，这是由中国手机制造商之间日益激烈的市场竞争和加速的专利竞赛所形成的。随着非洲科技霸权之争的加剧，Transsion表达了强烈的危机感，并将其FRT专利视为“竞争武器”，为未来在非洲的智能手机战争做准备。这项研究有两个贡献。从经验上讲，通过分析专利，我们考察了一家相对不太知名的中国科技公司，它在全球南方有着巨大的影响力。从理论上讲，我们质疑通过专利赋予算法权力反对种族主义人工智能和技术独立的可能性，尽管在中非背景下，将人工智能发展为武器也阻碍了非殖民化政治。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Information Communication & Society Multiple-

CiteScore

10.20

自引率

4.80%

发文量

110

期刊介绍： Drawing together the most current work upon the social, economic, and cultural impact of the emerging properties of the new information and communications technologies, this journal positions itself at the centre of contemporary debates about the information age. Information, Communication & Society (iCS) transcends cultural and geographical boundaries as it explores a diverse range of issues relating to the development and application of information and communications technologies (ICTs), asking such questions as: -What are the new and evolving forms of social software? What direction will these forms take? -ICTs facilitating globalization and how might this affect conceptions of local identity, ethnic differences, and regional sub-cultures? -Are ICTs leading to an age of electronic surveillance and social control? What are the implications for policing criminal activity, citizen privacy and public expression? -How are ICTs affecting daily life and social structures such as the family, work and organization, commerce and business, education, health care, and leisure activities? -To what extent do the virtual worlds constructed using ICTs impact on the construction of objects, spaces, and entities in the material world? iCS analyses such questions from a global, interdisciplinary perspective in contributions of the very highest quality from scholars and practitioners in the social sciences, gender and cultural studies, communication and media studies, as well as in the information and computer sciences.