Rights are messy and complicated
Bodies, and the labels we apply to them, raise questions of linguistic purity. Who has rights, who is excluded, and who gets to frame either are pressing questions as machine learning technologies emerge to shape and aid society. For algorithms to function they require coding, a purity of language that abstracts the human condition and bounds a normative understanding which it can operate within. How rights are mediated by technology is rooted in this narrative power, the desire to control and frame others provides impetus to all attempts at archiving, collating, and disseminating information.
In October 2022 Elon Musk finalised his purchase of Twitter, and in August 2024 the rebranded X released the stable version of its generative AI chatbot Grok which scraped X’s content to feed its machine learning (ML) algorithm. His control over X allows him the power to both frame how the algorithm shapes the conversation and who gets promoted within the X ecosystem.[1][2] Musk’s handling of the Ukraine war through control of StarLink satellites and control of X[3] highlight the interplay between technology, narrative power, and the desire to control the mediation of rights is a pressing issue as algorithmic technologies embed in our societies. As W.E.B DuBois asked[4], for minorities what does it feel like to be the problem whose rights require mediation, to be perceived as an issue that…
