Abstract: While ethics has been getting increasing attention in computing, it is often unclear whose ethics the scholars are referring to. Acknowledging and incorporating different ethics originating from different faiths, moralities, traditions, and ideological orientations has been a cornerstone of a modern pluriversal society. However, most computing systems have failed to incorporate multiple values and ethics, resulting in a problematic ethical imposition of the privileged communities over the underprivileged ones. Based on my fourteen years of ethnographic and design work with marginalized communities in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, USA, Canada, and many other countries, I demonstrate how computing technologies impose Western neoliberal ethics on these communities, how modern AI technologies further extend and expand this colonial practice, and finally how community-based co-designing can show a more pluriversal alternatives to that. I will further explain, through my ethnographic and design work, how a pluriversal approach can produce more ethical computing and AI technologies, and contribute to sustainable development.
Bio: Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto and the founding director of the ‘Third Space'' research group. His research interest is in the intersection between Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Ahmed received his PhD and Masters from Cornell University in the USA, and his Bachelor's and Master’s from BUET in Bangladesh. In the last fifteen years, he studied and developed successful computing technologies with various marginalized communities in Bangladesh, India, Canada, USA, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, and Ecuador. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed research articles and received multiple best paper awards in top computer science venues including CHI, CSCW, ICTD, and FaccT. Ahmed has received numerous honors and accolades, including the International Fulbright Science and Technology Fellowship, the Intel Science and Technology Fellowship, the Fulbright Centennial Fellowship, the Schwartz Reisman Fellowship, the Massey Fellowship, the Connaught Scholarship, Microsoft AI & Society Fellowship, Google Inclusion Research Award, and Facebook Faculty Research Award. His research has also received generous funding support from all three branches of Canadian tri-council research (NSERC, CIHR, SSHRC), USA’s NSF and NIH, and Bangladesh government’s ICT Ministry. Ahmed has been named the “Future Leader” by the Computing Research Association in 2024.