When AI Favors Profit over People ^{CEFR B1}

This piece is part of a collaboration among Global Voices, the Association for Progressive Communication and GenderIT. The author, Hija Kamran, says her work makes her cautious about new technologies and that she has often been a late adopter.

Kamran argues that tech companies repeatedly show their primary commitment is to business models rather than to people. She cites the remark "Senator, we run ads," attributed to Mark Zuckerberg, and recalls a company representative who told her, "I encourage people to read our terms of service." She says these responses reveal a lack of meaningful transparency and accountability.

The article explains that technology is not neutral. Training data drawn from the internet and public records reflects histories of exclusion, racism, sexism and economic inequality. When AI learns from that data, it can encode and amplify those harms. Corporate incentives — profit motives, shareholders and growth targets — shape which problems are prioritised and how quickly products roll out. Kamran calls for a human rights approach and urges asking who built a system, how it works and who benefits.