About the project

DecolonizAI is a pilot platform that aims to contribute to the debate of human interaction with technologies from a decolonial perspective. 

Understanding that colonial practices remain in industry, institutions and power relations, and that emerging technologies are only a reflection of the obstructions to access to universal rights, the challenge of making human-algorithm interaction ethical, empathetic and inclusive are immense.

The objective of the platform is: 1) to aggregate researchers with interest and academic production that relates to cultural, ethnic, and identity diversity in studies about society and technology; 2) to gather references that collaborate to the understanding and reflection about the theme; 3) to present visual examples that collaborate to the understanding of the theme by a wider audience, through memes, photos, videos, graphics, etc. 4) to become an interactive environment for proofs of concept of projects related to the theme, such as inclusive HCI, feminist HCI, APIs for filtering semantic content based on ethical premises, as well as future plans to build a decentralized database with control of the users who own the data posted on the platform.


DecolonizAI emerges as an initiative of researchers gathered at Catedra Oscar Sala, at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo, as a practical and experimental plan, as well as a proof of concept on how researchers from the academic-scientific environment can expand their communication with society, sharing knowledge and providing ways to interact with computing in a conscious manner.

DecolonizAI is a research initiative that understands that innovation will only be possible through the diffusion of multiple knowledges, and not included on a quantitative scale, in the technological narratives present in networks and ways of collecting data.

The main question to be answered is how Brazil can contribute to the creation and collection of just data, thus representing diverse peoples and their ways of life.

The decoloniality of artificial intelligence is still an open demand since there is no formula to facilitate the practice of decoloniality in human-algorithm interaction.

If Brazil aspires to implement technological autonomy in several services and markets, we ask, what will be the commitment to the local culture and the several ways of life that inhabit the territory, as well as the social and environmental responsibility of these projects?

Thus, as a research group we propose more attention to the theme of decolonization in order to think research and development in direct connection with society. That is, how to make the data that travels on the networks represent the ethical, social and environmental desires, so that these are affirmative actions and not reinforcing the negationism about racism, social injustices and environmental problems.

We are in favor of the creation of a database built within ethical and bioethical premises, through scientific knowledge and offered in a decentralized way in order to provide autonomy to individuals about the decision to commercialize – or not – their data.

  

Researchers

Collaborators

Partnerships