Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Society, and Gender Studies: Power, Bias, and the Politics of Intelligent Machines
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53573/rhimrj.2026.v13n03.014Keywords:
artificial intelligence, AI ethics, gender studies, algorithmic bias, feminist technology studies, data justice, surveillance, intersectionality, decolonial AI, labourAbstract
The alarming spread of technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI) in the social, economic, political, and cultural sectors has elevated the ethical concern of such systems to an urgent academic and popular issue. This research paper places AI ethics into the overarching context of feminist theory, gender studies, the critical race theory, and the sociology of technology, alleging that the issues of algorithmic bias, data justice, surveillance, labour, and the regulation of intelligent machines cannot be discussed outside the context of old structures of gender, race, and classes as well as coloniality. The article is written with the help of interdisciplinary research based on computer science, philosophy, feminist science and technology studies, political economy and legal theory to provide a thorough review of the literature concerning the key theoretical frameworks and empirical research traditions. It considers the gendered and racialised aspects of AI research and implementation, politics of data and representation, implications of AI in labour and care work, AI in surveillance and bodily sovereignty, and the difficulty in ensuring ethical and equitable AI governance systems. The article posits that the genuinely ethical approach towards AI has to be feminist, intersectional and decolonial in nature, that considers not only technical design, but also the social relations of production, deployment and contestation that provide AI systems with their real-world meanings.
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