Cyborg theory: the making of Haar Wese
Keywords: ethics in AI
artificial intelligence
AI

Surveillance capitalists use artificial intelligence (AI)-supported news media outlets (articles and broadcasting) and social media platforms to manipulate our behaviour for data. They use machine learning to respond to every activity (i.e., click, share, search, watch, like and linger) and predict our emotions (i.e., how we feel, when we feel and how our emotions can change). Such behavioural data are processed and sold as futures on the market. The human futures and behavioural futures are markets that predict upcoming generations’ collective behaviour and what seems achievable with the help of media manipulation. Although there is ethical governance around this practice, humanity is not at the centre of it. The debate around ethics usually relates to how a product can improve or how consumers can improve. Additionally, racial bias is prominent in machine learning, data processing, markets and ethical governance. The dominant perspectives are those of the surveillance capitalists, data analysts and investors. The perspectives of minority groups need to be considered and become focal points. The playwright, Individual Sovereignty, responds to the ethical governance in behavioural data collection, racial bias and minorities not being the primary focus in ethics through a machine learning simulation. The term, playwright, is used outside of its traditional literary function to provide multidimensionality to the writer (programmer) of Individual Sovereignty, Haar Wese. Haar Wese’s identity comprises the following: programmer of the simulation, creator of the programmed language for the simulation, and cyborg character in the simulation.
The two primary methodologies include the creation of Haar Wese (Afrikaans for Her Being)—a cyborg playwright and performer—and a studio practice involving ceramics, painting, live performance and filmmaking that represents different aspects of the cyborg. Haar Wese, the cyborg, records information (data) from their environment for processing. Also, when in academic spaces, they mirror unconscious behaviours back to the academics for behavioural data collection. Haar Wese, the playwright, produced Individual Sovereignty in a hybrid format screenplay and fine art live performance that mimics a machine learning simulation. Haar Wese, the performer, processes the data from the environment through movement. The studio practice involving ceramics is an extension of people. The studio practice involving painting is the memory of that person. The studio practice involving live performance is the environment that best connects to the audience at that moment. The data are collected to better understand humanity and empathy. The studio practice involving filmmaking represents the unconscious of the Black and Brown gazes. This all feeds back into Individual Sovereignty through character choices, dialogue structure and content, behavioural choices and predictions, scene descriptions, stage directions (actions) and music selection. The secondary methodologies include live performances (Blackbird in Mississippi and breathe.: I. The beginning), an interview with a musician, an interview with a dancer, an interview with a cyborg, a focus group discussion on Haar Wese: Live performance and a focus group discussion on bias detection. This group of connected entities and practices represents a fluid and elusive interpretation of the cyborg in the writing that follows.
The simulation shows the complexities of human behaviour and that their personal history, cultural histories, oppressive dominant gaze, as well as the government’s historical discriminatory systems, consistently inform the minority’s behaviour. This prevents the Black and Brown characters from evolving. The simulation did not fully resolve the biases but rather exposed more information about the biases in addition to further biases.