Encounters with data and AI require contending with the uncertainties of systems that are most often understood through their inputs and outputs. Storytelling is one way to reckon with and make sense of these uncertainties. So what stories can we tell about a world that has increasingly come to rely on AI-based, data-driven interventions to address social problems?
Curated and edited by Ranjit Singh, Rigoberto Lara Guzmán, and Patrick Davison, Parables of AI in/from the Majority World grew out of an experimental workshop Data & Society held in October 2021 that was designed to produce new ways of engaging with the global impacts of digital technologies. The anthology brings together original stories about the everyday experiences of living with AI-based systems from storytellers in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia — who explore themes including postcolonial computing, data extractivism, dignity, solidarity, and data justice.
In this context, “The Pavlovian Machine” explores hoy workers in Latin America navigate their undocumented status while dealing whit a delivery app that behaves like a “jealous girlfriend”.