Ordinary Ethics of AI

Most conversations about AI ethics happen at the level of principles — fairness, accountability, transparency — articulated by institutions and codified in frameworks that rarely reach the communities most affected by algorithmic systems. This session takes a different approach. Veena Das’s Textures of the Ordinary offers a philosophy of ethics grounded not in abstract principles but in the everyday practices through which people navigate complex and often unjust systems. Abeba Birhane’s relational ethics framework challenges the individualism of mainstream AI ethics, arguing that justice requires attending to the relationships — of power, dependency, and care — that algorithmic systems mediate. Our guest, Ranjit Singh from Data & Society, brings this into direct conversation with AI governance, drawing on his research with communities in India and beyond to ask how people actually live with algorithms and what “governing AI from the ground up” might look like in practice.

What would AI ethics look like if it started from the experiences of those most affected rather than the principles of those most powerful? How do communities develop their own practices for navigating algorithmic systems? And what is lost when ethics becomes a checklist rather than a lived practice?