If you think that humans are somehow inherently more trustworthy than AI, then you haven't been paying attention
I came across this via a recent post on OLDaily by Stephen Downes, who mentioned it while critiquing what I would call an information literacy approach to AI literacy.
The book How to Read Donald Duck is “a 1971 book-length essay by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart that critiques Disney comics from a Marxist point of view as capitalist propaganda for American corporate and cultural imperialism.” I haven’t read it, and so I’m not in a position to comment. However, I would point out that it’s possible to spread an ideology (or a perceived one) without being aware that you are an adherent of it.
I thought Downes' post was interesting, and worth publicly bookmarking, not only for mentioning this book but also for putting into words something that I’ve felt: “if you think that humans are somehow inherently more trustworthy than AI, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
The book’s thesis is that Disney comics are not only a reflection of the prevailing ideology at the time (capitalism), but that the comics' authors are also aware of this, and are active agents in spreading the ideology.
[…]
[Any] closeness to everyday life is so only in appearance, because the world shown in the comics, according to the thesis, is based on ideological concepts, resulting in a set of natural rules that lead to the acceptance of particular ideas about capital, the developed countries' relationship with the Third World, gender roles, etc.
As an example, the book considers the lack of descendants of the characters. Everybody has an uncle or nephew, everybody is a cousin of someone, but nobody has fathers or sons. This non-parental reality creates horizontal levels in society, where there is no hierarchic order, except the one given by the amount of money and wealth possessed by each, and where there is almost no solidarity among those of the same level, creating a situation where the only thing left is crude competition. Another issue analyzed is the absolute necessity to have a stroke of luck for social mobility (regardless of the effort or intelligence involved), the lack of ability of the native tribes to manage their wealth, and others.
Source: Wikipedia
Image: Taha