Technology, and the Conscious Existence

A Sustainable Prosperity Agenda for Black Populations of the Caribbean

 

 

The Inclusive Agenda                                                                                           January 30, 2021

 

 

I picked up my weekly reading of Scientific American this morning and found an article titled: ‘Inspired Choice’: Biden Appoints Sociologist Alondra Nelson to Top Science Post.

 

I too am inspired by this development. One of the real blind spots in the fight against racial inequality or the pursuit of racial equity is a lack of cognitive awareness and knowledge surrounding the impact of technology on the lives of Black people.

 

Nelson says, “I think that if we want to understand anything about science and technology, we need to begin with the people who have been the most damaged, the most subjugated by it...” 

 

The intersection of science, technology, and social inequalities is undeniable.

 

Dr. Nelson’s work is cutting edge…exploring science, technology, medicine, and social inequality.  Nelson has contributed to national policy discussions on inequality and the social implications of new technologies, including artificial intelligence, big data, and human gene-editing.

 

Another brilliant thinker, Dr. Timnit Gebru, researcher and Co-Founder of Black-in-AI has also raised concerns about technology and inequality. Gebru is one of the most high-profile Black women in her field and a powerful voice in the new field of ethical AI, which seeks to identify issues around bias, fairness, and social responsibility.

 

Dr. Gebru points out that AI is increasingly influencing our lives, and without diversity in our set of researchers, and entrepreneurs, others will control our trajectory for us.

 

Diversity and representation matters! While AI has the potential to solve an incredible spectrum of problems for humanity, where Black people are concerned, there is a widening disconnect between the people who are introducing and deploying AI-based solutions, and those who set policies for when and how these solutions are used—without diversity in the ecosystem, bias becomes an exacerbated problem.

 

According to Gebru: “algorithmic bias in AI systems, in which machine learning algorithms trained on data that reflects historical discrimination replicate and even magnify it.”

 

Consequently, AI/technology applications can be inherently racist, adversely impacting Black ambitions and policy agendas towards Black populations around the world.  This adversely affects business and policy decisions, it marginalizes Black people, engineering them out, making them irrelevant.

 

What we don’t know, what we can’t see, lack of access to information, and knowledge-based ecosystems, hold us back and hurt us the most.  When this information becomes known, it comes as a surprise to policymakers, who then hastily construct and rationalize flawed policy agendas for political expediency. Discrimination, inequality, are inherently embedded in our many institutions, therefore, it exists in the very universality of our technology.

 

The other pressing issue to be concerned about is all the missed opportunities. AI can be leveraged in delivering beneficial economic outcomes and accelerating Black entrepreneurship.  

 

The missed opportunities in entrepreneurship specifically, at a time of digital disruption, innovation and transformation—enormous generational economic opportunities to launch businesses, create value, wealth. If missed, will lead to negative multigenerational outcomes for Black populations around the world.

 

Racial inequality must be approached or understood within a historical context. Seventeenth-century Britain, for example, through the development of the Aristocratic society, coupled with state-led “capitalism”, created the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade for European economic expansion.  The evolution of Slavery in the Caribbean colonies saw slave-plantation economies transition in full stride, not missing a beat, to colonialism; underpinned by an embedded hierarchical society culture—the big white supremacy lie. 

 

Barbados, for example, was the first society anywhere in the world to be built and sustained entirely upon the enslavement of Africans.  The legacy of which we still see today in Barbados and the Black Caribbean psyche in general.  For example, children’s success path is viewed through education, and rightly so.  However, Caribbean parents often subconsciously influence and direct their kids’ aspirations towards working for the government, become a lawyer, doctor, nurse, “go study in England”, become scholars and academics, so one can have the PhD., and put “Dr.” before their names. All quality professions of course, but these subconscious notions are associated with legacy hierarchical the plantation-system, culture, structure and status, nonetheless.  

 

Light-skin vs. dark-skin, house vs. plantation-field Negro, this trauma remains firmly embedded in the “Black Psyche.”  Science shows about 94% of your actions are led through your subconscious, trauma is passed on, generation to generation, forging a cultural mindset, which since slavery until now has been systematically, institutionally, engineering Black people into a political and social underclass, which worsens decade by decade.

 

For example, it is no secret, Barbados today more than any other island in the Caribbean territories, suffers this legacy trauma—exponentially.  According to the University of the West Indies Vice-Chancellor, Sir Hilary Beckles, Bajans have been complicit with their suppression, denial of their own prosperity and self-determination:

 

“The Barbados society in its current structure is not sustainable. There is, in Barbados, a division of labour which says that the black community will occupy and control the politics and the white elite will control the economy.”

 

Unwittingly, through a continued sub-conscious status-culture existence, Bajan leaders, have allowed whites to quietly remain in control of economic and wealth ecosystems in the post-colonial era.  The majority of commerce and wealth streams have remained firmly in the hands of whites, a tiny 3.5% white population controls over 87% of the wealth, power, and influence.  Barbados, demonstrates, classically, how white supremacy strategy continues to succeed through mentally embedded colonial legacies.  

 

However, at this critical juncture of digital transformation, the conscious Black mind must awaken, find opportunity, and harness it to technology, change the trajectory and outcomes in the region.

 

“World inequality today exists because during the 19th and 20th centuries some nations were able to take advantage of the Industrial Revolution and technologies and methods of organisation that it brought while others are unable to do so. Technological change is only one of the engines of prosperity, but it is perhaps the most critical one” (Why Nations Fail).

 

The Caribbean Regions broad strategic goals must be to diversify the economy with digital products and services, bolster food security, increase food product exports through agricultural innovation, expand education and healthcare services reach through virtual technologies and attract foreign investment while driving towards a zero-emissions based Green economy.

 

We must shift our mindset from users/workers and consumers of technology to one of leadership, entrepreneurship, innovators, in a technology-driven world.  We must be designers of our future worlds, not mere participants, we must write our own stories.

 

“The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world” Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.

 

Leveraging technology to change the future of the Caribbean by accelerating entrepreneurship growth, towards dismantling legacy power structures, barriers of inequality, which can impact multi-generational outcomes—is the most important, logical task of Black leadership today. 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major unprecedented blow for the Caribbean region.  A region already without meaningful commodity exports and industry, and it would also be highly ill-advised to sit and wait for “tourism to recover.”  Not going to happen anytime soon.  We must forge ahead with our natural competitive advantages, which is agriculture—to be powered by AI…is the most optimal and sensible future sustainable growth path for the region.  Everyone has to eat, we must use digital technology to move our agricultural economy potential up the global value supply chain, maintaining greater profitability on our productivity and outputs.

 

We must envision a thriving end-to-end ecosystem, sustainably allocating Black talent to the utilization of technology—engaging with Black students, researchers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, all relevant stakeholders, towards the creation of a long-term inclusive growth agenda—transforming the reality of our existence.  

 

Data science technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, is revolutionizing the world and ratcheting up the prosperity curve for those in the game.  The future is now! Caribbean societies must stand up for themselves and leapfrog into the world’s wealth creation ecosystem; or, be left tragically behind. 

 

Nevertheless, the real exciting challenge, opportunity, is how best to apply current technology and find ways to give the greatest number of our Black people, the capability, tools and most importantly, mindset—to positively impact their own lives, families, and communities.