ABSTRACT

This paper reflects on proliferating AI for Social Good (AI4SG) initiatives, with an eye to public health and health equity. It notes that many AI4SG initiatives are shaped by the same corporate entities that incubate AI technologies, beyond democratic control, and stand to profit monetarily from their deployment. Such initiatives often pre-frame systemic social and environmental problems in tech-centric ways, while suggesting that addressing such problems hinges on more or better data. They thereby perpetuate incomplete, distorted models of social change that claim to be ‘data-driven’. In the process, AI4SG initiatives may obscure or ‘ethics wash’ all the other uses of big data analytics and AI that more routinely serve private interests and exacerbate social inequalities. As a case in point, it discusses the prominence of health-related applications in AI and big data fields, alongside the politics of more ‘upstream’ versus ‘downstream’ health interventions.

摘要

本文着眼于激增的AI促进社会公益（AI4SG）计划，着眼于公共卫生和健康公平。它指出，许多AI4SG计划都是由孵化AI技术（不受民主控制）的同一公司实体形成的，这些公司实体将从其部署中获利。此类举措通常以以技术为中心的方式预先解决系统的社会和环境问题，同时建议解决此类问题取决于更多或更好的数据。因此，它们使声称是“数据驱动”的不完整，扭曲的社会变革模型永存。在此过程中，AI4SG计划可能使大数据分析和AI的其他所有用途变得晦涩或“不道德”，这些用途更常规地服务于私人利益并加剧了社会不平等现象。作为一个例子，