1,720,972 research outputs found
Chatbot Programmes’ ‘Arms Race’: Africa and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics
No full textThis paper argues that the AI revolution which is currently unfolding and being fuelled by the significant strides in Generative AI-powered technologies, calls for an urgent response by the African continent, to ensure that possible harms associated with this cutting-edge technology are mitigated. The ‘arms race’ to create chatbots that can rival Open AI’s ChatGPT-4.0 technology by big technology companies such as Google and Meta, is not only hastening the pace of the AI revolution but is also bringing to the fore the double-edged nature of this technology. The benefits of AI generative technologies such as chatbots in fields such as the academy; health; agriculture; music and art, have been touted in recent times, but the ethical concerns around issues of bias; possible proliferation of misinformation from algorithms that are trained on datasets that are not fully representative of the global South’s realities, especially Africa; breaches in privacy issues and threats of job losses, still linger. The fact that in March 2023, an Elon Musk-led petition to have a six-month moratorium on AI chatbot innovations began circulating raises serious ethical concerns around the AI revolution, which makes it critical for a continent such as Africa, which has largely been a consumer of these technologies and notan innovator, to urgently draft measures that can protect it. The paper contends that even though Africa is not homogenous in nature, it needs to come up with an AI ethics-driven framework that protects the majority of its population which is mired in poverty and likely to be on the receiving end of any cons associated with AI technologies. This framework should be largely anchored in the African philosophy of Ubuntu, but also pragmatic enough to include positive facets of global-North philosophical strands such as deontology, which largely places currency on ethical principles and rules above the outcomes they produce
Foreword
No full textAs the African continent stands at the cusp of profound technological advancement, it finds itself compelled to confront both the pros and the cons of the digital revolution. Artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, mobile commerce, and advanced machine learning (ML) are no longer emerging phenomena in distant economies; they are deeply embedded in Africa’s sociopolitical, economic, and cultural fabric. This special issue of Technology and Society within the African Context, illuminates the multidimensional implications of these advancements, recognising the urgency of both proactive engagement and ethical stewardship. Through ten insightful contributions, this issue seeks to provide a deep understanding of how Africa might harness these technologies to foster resilience, inclusivity, and sustainability across sectors
Is Zimbabwe on the cusp of mass protests over the country’s worsening economic malaise?
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The other face of the Zimbabwean crisis: the black market and dealers during Zimbabwe’s decade of economic meltdown, 2000-2008
Full text linkAbstract: This paper explores the Zimbabwean crisis from the lens of dealers who benefitted from the chaotic and highly speculative Zimbabwean economy during the decade of crisis (2000-2008). The impression created by the bulk of the literature that has been published on Zimbabwe during its decade of crisis is that the political impasse and economic meltdown left a trail of impoverishment in the country. This paper challenges this widely held perception by arguing that even though the Zimbabwean crisis wreaked havoc for most Zimbabweans’ livelihood, this is not entirely true for some of the dealers who made a ‘killing’ from Zimbabwe’s burgeoning black market during the decade of crisis
Male Somali refugee livelihood strategies and masculinities : a case study of East London
Full text linkAbstract: As the global refugee phenomenon continues to grow unabated, South Africa still receives increasing numbers of refugee applications. This is a result of South Africa’s non-encampment policy that allows refugees to self-settle. One of the largest refugee groups in South Africa are Somalis, who make up the sixth largest refugee population in the world. Somalis have for decades migrated to South Africa and established themselves as entrepreneurs. However, studies have not duly accounted for the socio-economic activities they engage in and the effect these activities have on their masculinities. This study fills this gap by interrogating the sustainability of Somali refugees’ socio-economic activities and the effect they have on the construction of their masculinities in a transnational space...D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology
A qualitative analysis of the ‘Riskscapes’ of young people in Nairobi, Kenya, in an era of terror attacks
Full text linkAbstract: In recent years, Kenya has experienced a series of devastating terrorist attacks, including attacks at the Westgate mall in Nairobi in 2013, the Garissa University college attack in Garissa town in Northern Kenya in 2015, and, most recently, the terror attacks at the DusitD2 complex, Nairobi, in 2019. While there is a vast body of literature that has explored how people navigate risk following terrorist attacks in the Global North, it is a relatively unexplored area in the African context. This dissertation addresses this gap by analysing how young people navigate risk in an era of terror attacks. The dissertation adopts the concept of 'riskscape' to analyse how risk is experienced through spatial practices. The concept is used to demonstrate how riskscapes consist of overlapping and related risks occurring at different times, are embedded in specific places, and are shaped by various actors and power structures through everyday practices...M.A. (Sociology
The response of the working class in Harare, Zimbabwe to hyper-inflation and the political crisis, 1997-2008
Full text linkThe dissertation traces the responses by Harare's working class to the economic and political crisis that gripped Zimbabwe in the years 1997 to 2008. It starts with 'Black Friday' in 1997, which initiated a period of rising inflation culminating in the second worst hyper-inflation in world history, and ends with dollarisation. This was a period marked by rigged elections, notably in 2000 and 2008, and by considerable political repression. Drawing mainly on interview data, the repertoire of reactions is considered at three levels: unions, work and the household. A distinction is made between three kinds of response: workerism, partyism and survivalism. Combined with economic and political data this leads to a periodisation. First, from 1997-2000 there was a shift in the dominant response from workerism to partyism. Secondly, following failure by the unions and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to respond effectively to the stolen election of 2000, and with a rapidly declining economy and bouts of state terror, there was a move towards survivalism. Thirdly, this became more pronounced during years of hyper-inflation, 2006-08. But, fourthly, survivalism failed to provide the solution to people's problems, and there was a return to partyism, with this feeding into the MDC's success in 2008 and, thus, to dollarisation. Finally, there are signs of a limited return to workerism in the period since 2008. Whilst there was significant numerical and organisational disintegration in the working class from 2000 onwards, this remained partial, with the unions contributing to the MDCs electoral gains in 2008. Accounts of the period that privilege survival strategies not only obscure other responses to the crisis, they also occlude an appreciation of the role of repression in atomising workers, thus reducing their options, and the significance of the failure of workerism and partyism in encouraging individualised responses. A more rounded view can also assist us in making sense of the outcome and implications of the 2008 elections, and along with it, moves that went beyond survival strategising. The dissertation considers the experiences of four groups of workers and shows how these differed greatly. Teachers stayed away from work, in large measure to save on travel costs and participate in cross-border trade; factory workers often benefited from non-salary and even non-monetary remuneration; the catering workers at times relied on small-scale deals in the informal sector; banking workers suffered less than other workers and were better placed to engage in financial scams. It is possible that this unevenness further undermined the possibility of unified action by workers...D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology
Covid-19 fully exposes Zimbabwe’s comatose economy
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Young adults using mobile phones : assessing the potential for a new genre of participatory Local Governance in the City of Johannesburg
Full text linkM.A.Abstract: This dissertation sought to investigate the role played by mobile phones as facilitators of participation in local governance for young adults in a township community which falls under the jurisdiction of the City of Johannesburg. Irrespective of how benign a form of governance may be, the wielding of power will always be a core concern. The ways in which power is conceived by Juergen Habermas and Michel Foucault were studied and contrasted, in order to arrive at a conception which accorded most closely with the realities of governance as it is practised in the location in which the study was conducted. For Habermas, the power of democratic participation is reflected in the collective will of the majority and captured in the policy-making process, an idealistic conceptualisation which is dependent upon a political environment in which rational discourse and participation are encouraged. Foucault, by contrast, maintains that communication is inevitably altered by the effects of power, self-interest or ignorance and evaluates relationships pertaining to the dynamics of power in terms of struggle. The lack of will, on the part of local government, to facilitate the modernising of systems of communication with citizens to promote increased transparency and to make governance inclusive for young adults made Foucault’s conception of power dynamics particularly relevant to the focus of this research study. Actor-network theory (ANT) was employed as the means of gaining an understanding of the power dynamics which prevail among the various human and non-human actors in the domain of governance, through a specific focus on relationships and networks. ANT analyses the relationships between human and non-human actors by regarding both as actants, to use the terminology coined by Latour. The conclusions of the study focus on the transformative capabilities of technology and its potential result of more meaningful participatory governance, and any observable shifts in the balance of power between the city and its young adults as citizens. Although technology has been cited as a means of reducing the tensions between invited and invented spaces in society, there is still a lack of willingness, ability and capacity on the..
Masculinity, respectability and divergence among migrant informal traders in Johannesburg
Full text linkAbstract: Although migrant masculinities exhibit diverse forms of solidarities in host countries, existing masculinity-migration studies have not duly accounted for how their exercise of agency associated with the construction of masculine respectability results in migrant-migrant contestations among them. This study fills in this gap by interrogating the masculine relationships among African men in Johannesburg. Employing qualitative in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, data was collected from 20 young, male migrants from four African countries - Ghana, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia – across 4 informal business sites in Johannesburg over a period of 6 months. This information was subsequently thematically analysed using Creswell’s (2009) six-step data analysis approach. Findings reveal that in their articulations of masculine respectability, the migrant men create and co-create each other in the social fields that they inhabit through gendered agency. Sometimes such enactments of masculinity are material they construct and reconstruct themselves materially, for instance, as providers and heads of households. At other times, the men turn to other social means to construct self-esteem, including employing past and present cultural and symbolic social resources like educational attainment, age, legal status in South Africa, etc. In the relational contexts that the bodies of the men interact, they mobilise individual and collective agencies to forge useful relationships and solidarities. Yet, these are mostly instrumental in nature thus tend to be frequently disrupted by individual and group senses of respectability that result in tensions among them. The manifest outcomes include verbal and physical contestations and co-constructions, which sometimes are also violent in nature. These, then, lead the men to make calculated decisions to engage minimally with each other while maintaining strategic solidarities. The thesis adds a significant voice to studies on migrant masculinities by interrogating the complex realities and relationships that migrant men are embedded in within host contexts. Ultimately, it presents a critical perspective of masculinitymigration literature that is largely fixated on xenophobia discourses, which tend to locate migrant men as victims during the migratory process.D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology
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