ALGORITHMIC EMPOWERMENT OR IMPERIALIST WARFARE? DARK SKIN, AI CAMERA, AND A CHINESE COMPANY’S PATENT STRATEGY

Through document analysis and participant observation, this paperexamines the patent strategy of Transsion, a Chinese company that dominates Africa’ssmartphone market and a leading innovator in facial recognition technologies optimised fordarker skins. We identify two major narratives surrounding Transsion’s facial recognitionpatent strategy. First is the “empowerment” narrative, in which Transsion argues that thereare “blind spots” in conventional AI camera technologies and interprets its AI camera as notjust a fix to existing blindness but also an empowerment tool for dark-skinned users by“seeing” and capturing their beauty. While the “empowerment” narrative is more externallyoriented, Transsion uses a “warfare” narrative to interpret its patent strategy internally.This may have to do with cut-throat market competition, patents race, and the rapid pace ofinnovation, which gave Transsion a strong sense of crisis. Other major Chinese brands arealso entering the African market. Transsion thus considers its facial recognition patents as“competitive weaponry” in preparation for a future clash in Africa’s smartphone market. Thisstudy makes three contributions. Empirically, through document analysis and participantobservation, we examine a relatively less known Chinese smartphone company that has madehuge impact in the Global South. Theoretically, we shed on the possibility of algorithmicempowerment against racist facial recognition systems, although developing AI as a weaponry,in the Chinese-African contexts, may also lead to new forms of imperialism. Thematically,echoing this year’s AoIR conference theme, this study reveals the politics and geopoliticsof independence through patents.