Author: E.A.
“The problems with Google Earth”
This, I type into my search bar to retrieve multiple perspectives on the narrow view Google Earth provides, as Mayukh Sen highlights in “Dividing Lines.” Looking back, it should not have surprised me that the only results available were explaining how to fix loading errors. Was there a flaw in the question I searched? Perhaps. But the more likely scenario is that Google’s search algorithm does not favour multiple perspectives, especially those that criticize them. Bias is something most people are familiar with; everything we read, watch, or listen to has an inherent bias. But do we really know the extent to which bias exists?
Sen describes Google maps as having an “essentialist white, Western perspective” that exists in almost every aspect of our current society. He describes Google Earth as a “neocolonial force” that perpetuates inequalities, plays into dangerous stereotypes, and reflects a world forever tainted by colonialism. These ideas are prevalent within the Google Earth interface, and further research on a larger scale has shown the link between artificial intelligence and racism. My google search results (pictured above).
A 2020 article by The Washington Post focuses on Timnit Gebru, who was unfairly fired from her role as the co-leader of Google’s Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team. The unexpected disassembling of equity groups for people of colour in the workforce has been a trend at Google since it began. To further support this point, an article in Nature called “AI can be
sexist and racist — it’s time to make it fair” further proves the need for an ethical AI team at Google and other tech companies. The article includes examples of Nikon’s blink warning for camera self-timer, which views Asian people as perpetually blinking, and how word embedding automatically views African American names as “unpleasant.”
AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru.
This merely scratches the surface of the bias AI holds. It is ironic, not only because tech is supposed to be either black and white, working or not working, objective, but also because AI is a relatively new concept that could altogether avoid the discrimination of the past if companies are attentive enough. Clearly, equity is not as big of a priority as Google, and other massive tech companies, boast it to be.
For example, Sen outlines Google’s attitudes toward impoverished countries in the Global South as being “unexplored” and needing representation. There is disproportionate access to Western countries on Google Earth, which Google then uses in their favour to explore the Global South when it benefits their image – a classic white saviour move. With some advertising and the ability to frame their initiatives as “progressive,” it indeed reaffirms what we already know: that Google only cares for these nations and minority groups when positive public reception and, more importantly, profit accompany it.
Zuckerberg’s greedy assumption that India would welcome Facebook with open arms is yet another example of this concept. It is a white, western ideal that what we have access to and our structures in place are the most ideal in any context. When, in fact, the opposite can often be true. Many other nations prioritize unity and simplicity instead of the fast-paced, overly individualistic practices of the Western hemisphere. This is mirrored in the creation of artificial intelligence. White men believed themselves to be most capable of producing this revolutionary technology that they did not factor in the need for diversity. Thus, we were left with harmful stereotypes and discrimination that we’ve been fighting against for centuries. Replicating the same dangerous practices does not reflect the advancement of society artificial intelligence claims to be catalyzing. In fact, if diversity is not prioritized– whether that be in the form of greater access to non-Western countries on Google Earth or having facial recognition for non-white people– we are doomed to enter a never-ending cycle of discrimination.
So, as I reach the fifth page of Google with no escape from bias in sight, I remember that bias is inescapable and that there will always exist the “human’s struggle to overcome a potentially useful technology’s limitations and biases” (Sen). However, with growing pushback and the progress made in society, I am optimistic that technology is not hopeless; diversity needs to be prioritized to avoid past mistakes.