Algolinguicism

Algolinguicism: Translating Language Justice to Digital Platforms

Amalgam Journal no. 4 (2024)
Ed. and designed by Pouya Ahmadi
Reprinted from the 2021 AI Now Institute Series, “A New AI Lexicon,”
Eds. Noopur Raval and Amba Kak

A contribution to “A New AI Lexicon,” edited by Noopur Raval and Amba Kak at AI Now Institute, a call for contributions to generate alternate narratives, positionalities, and understandings to the better known and widely circulated ways of talking about AI.

This essay examines how speakers of non-dominant languages are disproportionately subject to algorithmic harms. They confront content moderation algorithms that “only work in certain languages” on platforms that structurally omit non-Western nations from governance considerations. I call this tendency algolinguicism — a matrix of automated processes that minoritize language-users outside the Global North and obstruct their access to political participation. Addressing digital platforms as sites of algolinguicism, this essay asks:

Which languages are accorded weight in the development of a platform’s algorithms? Which speakers are afforded the right to participate on a given platform, and how do linguistic hierarchies materially impact their lived experience? Whose languages are digital platforms taught to speak?

Image: Spread from Amalgam Journal, edited and designed by Pouya Ahmadi