Critical Race Algorithmic Literacy: Preparing Black Youth to “Talk Back” and “Bring Wreck” to Algorithmic Anti-Blackness in AI

• In Event: Black Literacies: Centering BlackCrit and Listening to Black Students' Experiences

Abstract

This paper centers the experiences of 3 cohorts (n=40) of Black high school students who participated in a critical race technology course called “Race, Abolition and Technology.” The goal of the course was to prepare students to interrogate the ubiquity of anti-Black racism within socio-technical architectures (e.g. code, data, algorithms, etc.) of artificially intelligent technologies, including image recognition systems, AI chatbots, predictive analytics, and robot agents. Students leveraged course knowledge to collaboratively design race-conscious and algorithmically-just counter-technologies that could protect and empower Communities of Color. This paper centers the voices, insights and technological creations of the students, and in doing so, introduces a new type of digital literacy: critical race algorithmic literacy.

Author

• Tiera C. Tanksley, University of Colorado - Boulder