Dystopian Dreams, Utopian Nightmares: AI and the Permanence of Racism

• Pages: 1299-1342
• Date: 01 June 2024
• Published date: 01 June 2024
• Author: Chaz Arnett
• Subject Matter: Derecho Civil

Dystopian Dreams, Utopian Nightmares:

AI and the Permanence of Racism

CHAZ ARNETT*

This Essay draws connections between Octavia Butler’s Parable series

(Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents), HBO’s Westworld,

and Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of

Racism to highlight how the reconf‌iguration and transmutation of race

through technological change is facilitated by corresponding shifts in

legal doctrine, theory, policy, and practice. It takes the overlapping

threads from these three sources, which struggle with the idea of change

within larger systems of unavoidable, repetitive destruction, and ties

them to the law’s role in helping to shield race through the storms of

change by being similarly nimble, f‌lexible, and perseverant. The Essay

identif‌ies a theme found in both the selected Afrofuturistic works and in

tech-centered legal doctrine, regulation, and theory that illuminate the

law’s role in reconstituting the fraught relationship between race and

technology: the promise of utopia. The Essay explores this concept in the

context of emerging debates on the function, utility, and harm of genera-

tive artif‌icial intelligence (AI), which has been promoted as the latest

tool toward a transhumanist future devoid of the trappings of humanity’s

biggest f‌laws. It proposes four emanating values, Ustopia, Sankofa, Data

Justice, and Data Power, which should help guide advocacy, policymak-

ing, and resistance in an increasingly AI dominated future. It ultimately

concludes that an Afrofuturistic lens is not only important for under-

standing the potential harms of AI and developing regulatory frameworks

but also necessary for imagining how such technologies could serve the

interests of radical Black futures. The Essay contributes to a burgeoning

literature using Afrofuturism—which situates the Black struggle in

persistent yet continuously changing structural disparities and power

relations—as an important departure point for expressing data precarity

and reimagining new modes of data protection.

* Professor of Law, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. © 2024, Chaz

Arnett. I would like to sincerely thank Jennifer Chapman for editing and feedback. I also thank the

participants of the Afrofuturism and the Law Roundtable at Fordham Law School for their thoughts and

suggestions. And thank you to Matiangai Sirleaf for the big picture thoughts and insights. Lastly, thank

you to the great editing work on this piece by the Editors of The Georgetown Law Journal, including

Samantha Purdy, Tate Rosenblatt, Noah Curtiss, and Emma Watson.

1299

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1301

I. THE BETWEEN: UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA IN AFROFUTURISM AND AI . . . . . 1308

A. PROMISE OF UTOPIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1309

1. Utopian Dreams and Afrofuturism .................... 1309

a. Parable of the Sower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1309

b. The Space Traders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1310

c. Westworld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1312

2. AI’s Transcendent Future ............................ 1313

B. DYSTOPIAN REALITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318

1. Dystopian Nightmares and Afrofuturism ............... 1319

2. AI’s Dark Magic.................................... 1323

II. HOW LONG ’TIL BLACK FUTURE MONTH?: FOUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES

FOR ENGAGEMENT WITH AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1327

A. USTOPIA................................................ 1328

B. SANKOFA............................................... 1330

C. DATA JUSTICE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1336

D. DATA POWER ............................................ 1339

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1341

1300 THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 112:1299

INTRODUCTION

There Are Black People in the Future

1

On March 3, 2018, a billboard designed by the artist Alisha B. Wormsley was erected in the East

Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The billboard’s message was simple: “THERE ARE BLACK

PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE.” See Sarah Rose Sharp, Artist’s Billboard Declaring “There Are Black

People in the Future” Taken Down by Landlord, HYPERALLERGIC (Apr. 9, 2018), https://hyperallergic.

com/436763/alisha-wormsley-the-last-billboard-pittsburgh-there-are-black-people-in-thefuture [https://

perma.cc/237J-XYUD]. These words caused a signif‌icant controversy and led to the building owner

demanding that it be removed just weeks later. See id. The message was particularly poignant in the East

Liberty neighborhood, which was once predominantly Black and has experienced signif‌icant forced

removals and hypergentrif‌ication. See id. When asked about the project, Wormsley said that the work

was in the spirit of Afrofuturism. See id.

There is a scene in Marlon James’s novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf where

the main character, Tracker, comes upon a startling discovery.

2

While on an

adventurous journey with a small band of friends to save a child, whose fate may

alter the world, they go to a seemingly marvelous and technologically advanced

queendom, Dolingo.

3

Upon arrival, members of the group watch in awe as levers

and pulleys operating various modes of transportation all seem to work on their

own.

4

When they reach their accommodations, the doors open automatically.

5

When they go to sit down, chairs slide over for them to sit, and tables move

accordingly.

6

It is the most advanced society they have ever encountered.

7

They

even begin to joke about how the presence of this utopia could only be explained

by some form of magic.

8

However, after spending a day there, Tracker begins to

question why he has never seen any children, or even any slaves like in all the

other kingdoms in the North and South.

9

While in his room, Tracker smells

what he believes to be a person sweating behind one of the walls.

10

He and his

friend begin tearing at the wall to open it. What they discovered nearly f‌loored

them. Behind the wall was a young boy who had his mouth stuffed, and

“[e]very limb—legs, feet, toes, arms, hands, neck, and each f‌inger—was tied to,

and pulled, a rope.”

11

It was never magic that made everything move, but rather

an army of child slaves hidden behind the walls and beneath the f‌loorboards.

12

While trying to f‌igure out what to do with the child who likely spent most, if not

all, their days behind the walls, the child escaped and leapt from the balcony to

his death.

13

1.

2. MARLON JAMES, BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF 433–34 (2019).

3. See id. at 409–12.

4. See id.

5. Id. at 422.

6. See id. at 423–24.

7. See id. at 410.

8. See id. at 418–23.

9. See id. at 426.

10. Id. at 434.

11. Id.

12. See id. at 435, 454–56.

13. See id. at 436–37.

2024] DYSTOPIAN DREAMS, UTOPIAN NIGHTMARES 1301