Kerry McInerney talks to Nuala McGovern

Tech companies dominate the planet, social media is an all-pervasive source of unchecked and often inflammatory information. The internet of things allows and enables abusive behaviour. AI systems designed to detect and deter crime have been shown up as nothing more than biased racial profiling. 

Solutions to these problems tend to be technical, workarounds designed by predominantly male techies. Research fellow Dr Kerry McInerney argues that wider society needs to be involved. It might be unfashionable, but as the web is an amplifier of many pre-existing societal issues, how about listening to the organisations that deal with those?
From deep fakes to the fear of AI taking jobs, to the social media giants making money from abusive content, our technology-dominated world is in a crisis. What are the solutions?

From her work researching AI and the consequences of the way global tech is currently governed, or not governed, McInerney takes a critical perspective on data, algorithms and intelligent machines.

She will outline how feminism transforms our understanding of cyber safety and cybersecurity. This includes the limitations of predictive policing, the tensions between child safety and privacy rights, the use of new technologies (like smart home technologies and the Internet of Things) for forms of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, and why feminism can help us rethink what it means to be ‘safe’ online. New AI-powered tech and gen AI in particular poses new challenges when thinking about cybersecurity from a feminist lens. The solution, she says, involves a new take on AI, looking at how it can be used on a small scale, taking into account cultural differences, having local applications rather than trying to push for global one-size-fits-all strategies.

McInerney will critique the role of corporate responsibility for Big Tech, especially how it has largely eschewed its role in responsibly managing its platform content, and the harms involved in platform and content moderation. She will look at solutions, how content moderation and tackling harassment online require an understanding of the social, political and psychological dimensions of harassment rather than simply the technical ones. (This can also be linked to misinformation, where there’s a similar argument to be made).

McInerney is a research fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge and the AI Now Institute

Forward Thinking is a series of 4 programmes for the BBC World Service presented by Nuala McGovern and recorded at the Oxford Literary Festival.

Audience questions will follow the initial conversation with the guests.  If you are planning to attend the event there will be an opportunity for you to ask a question.  If you are unable to attend but might like to ask a question that the BBC then features in the broadcast, you can send those in advance to the producer of the shows julian.siddle@bbc.co.uk

Tickets are free but must be booked through the box office.

The recording will begin at 2pm in The Tuanku Bainun Auditorium located in the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre at Worcester College Oxford. If attending the recording, please arrive at least 15 minutes before the start time. The auditorium is a few minutes’ walk from the main Worcester College entrance.