Domestic AI systems, maker culture and the design ethics of Ivan Illich

Author Identifier

Andrew Hutcheon: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8790-6195

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Title

Technology, Users and Uses: Ethics and Human Interaction Through Technology and AI

Publisher

Ethics International Press Limited

School

School of Arts and Humanities

RAS ID

65664

Comments

Hutcheon, A. (2023). Domestic AI systems, maker culture and the design ethics of Ivan Illich. In Technology, Users, and Uses: Ethics and Human Interaction Through Technology and AI. Ethics Interntaional Press Limited. https://ethicspress.com/products/technology-users-and-uses

Abstract

Most public discourse in everyday artificial intelligence (AI) is focused on the commercial applications of AI and Internet of Things devices, perhaps best exemplified by the ‘Big 3’ AI systems of Apple Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa. The market dominance of the Big 3 and the prevalence of opaque, proprietary everyday AIs is the beginning of what Ivan Illich calls ‘radical monopoly’, where the form of the technology itself, rather than specific corporate market power, limits our agency in everyday life (Illich, 1975). Illich’s theory of convivial tools serves as a set of design values that could moderate the relationship between technology and the needs of people (Illich, 1975). Convivial tools conceptually propose that the enclosure of devices from user repair and modification, among other monopolisations, is an unethical practice intended to distort our material relationship with the world. In ‘Maker culture’, a subculture that utilises network connectivity to aid in a wide variety of DIY activity (Dougherty, 2012), there is an alternate ecosystem which can be studied for clues to an alternative to the capitalist ethics of the Big 3 offerings. While acknowledging the criticisms of Maker culture as naïve or outright co- opted (Hepp, 2018; Morozov, 2014), there is in projects such as the Mycroft AI assistant and related projects, the outlines of an ethic that values user ownership, cultural difference and human creativity more than its commercial peers. In this chapter, Illich’s countercultural notions of radical monopoly and conviviality are proposed as useful concepts worth revisiting to work through some of the technological dilemmas we face today.

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