Identifying Potential Inlets of the Biocentric Man in the Artificial Intelligence Development Process

Abstract This chapter examines how artificial intelligence (AI) engineering processes can foster and facilitate the development of racialized technologies. The authors ground their perspective on racialization using Sylvia Wynter’s definition of the biocentric Man genre of the human and its exclusion of Blackness from humanness. They then discuss some typical steps for developing AI-based technology, which they have broken down into six stages: problem identification, resource management, dataset development and data processing, model development, deployment and risk assessment, and integration and monitoring. The goal of this chapter is to gain a deeper understanding of how the biocentric Man is represented and reinforced by the technologies we produce in the AI lifecycle and by the lifecycle itself. This chapter identifies ways in which the distinction of Blackness from the ideal human leads to perpetual punishment at the hands of these technologies. By deconstructing the AI development process, we can identify how people in general have not been prioritized and how this disproportionately affects marginalized individuals. The chapter also provides pathways to address these issues and encourage changes in AI engineering processes.