Great AI divides? : automated decision-making technologies and dreams of development

A growing body of scholarship is combining studies of automated decision-making’s potential to alleviate challenges of development with critical perspectives on discourses and deployment of technologies in developing contexts. This article builds on this literature by drawing links between ‘dreams of development’ and the imaginings and aspirations surrounding automated decision making in the Global South. The article explores how three classic development imaginaries are reframed, altered and ultimately reinforced by policy recommendations at the global level by the World Bank: alleviating poverty and the creation of wealth, good governance, and social inclusion. We bring into sharper focus the interplay between international narratives about the emancipatory potential of AI and unpack co-created moral discourses around the responsibility over the provision, use and consequences of automated decision-making technologies. Themes of intentionality and the uptake of AI technologies become even more contentious in the Global South, where populations have arguably been subject to consecutive projects described as development, which have resulted in further entrenchment of systemic inequalities.