The Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Cultural

Diversity: An Overview

Submitted to:
Al Jamal Mustafa Shindaini (Tamal)
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)
Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP)

Submitted by:
TOWHEEDUL ALAM
ID: 2112091028
7th Batch
Master of Development Studies (MDS)
Department of Development Studies
Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FASS)

Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP)

April 23, 2021

Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP)

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 Declaration
I hereby declare that the term paper entitled “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Cultural
Diversity: An Overview” is submitted for the requirement of the course MDS 503 (Society and
Culture Changing Landscape) in the Department of Development Studies, BUP. This term paper
is my original work and not submitted for the award of any other degree, diploma, fellowship or
other similar titles or prizes and that the work has not been publishes in any journal or magazine.

Signature
(TOWHEEDUL ALAM)
ID: 2112091028
7th Batch, Session: Jan-Apr 2021
Master of Development Studies (MDS)
Department of Development Studies
Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FASS)
Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP)

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Executive Summary
Artificial Intelligence has been influencing and changing our life-style since it’s implication
started. It is a combined far advanced technology which is designed to imitate human
intelligence by using static algorithm and processing and analyzing data. In other words, it
operates according to the result of its data analysis and fixed algorithm, but not like conventional
computers. Technology has always influenced culture. Because culture is diverse in the context
of landscapes. The empirical findings have shown the impact of AI has not been the same as
different culture convey different value, norm, belief, religion, environment etc. But in some
cases, its influence remains same for every society, such as organizational culture. On the other
hand, in some society, AI is criticized because it uses people’s personal data which violet
privacy. Some concern that, AI will take in place of human in the various job position and might
raise social chaos, especially in the Third World countries. But still AI is emerging and have long
way to go to achieve its full maturity. Furthermore, many countries still haven’t able to imply AI
to its full extent. So, it will be wise not to jump into any conclusion right now. However, more
access to data and continuous empirical study need to be conducted to achieve more precious
result. Because culture changes. Today’s result may not be valid in the near future.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, culture, diverse, technology, society.

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 Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................5
Objective....................................................................................................................................................5
Literature Review......................................................................................................................................5
Understanding Artificial Intelligence (AI)...............................................................................................6
Understanding Cultural Diversity............................................................................................................7
AI Changing the Traditional Art and Culture........................................................................................7
AI Changing the Organizational Culture................................................................................................8
Mitigating Unconscious Bias.................................................................................................................8
Assuring Culture Fit in Workplace......................................................................................................8
Going beyond Conventional Culture....................................................................................................8
Al and Local Culture.................................................................................................................................9
Limitations.................................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Diversity of content is indispensable to a vivacious public discussion, to social and cultural
annexation as well as unity. Cultural diversity has thus been long recognized as a regulatory
objective in cultural dogmas and national media, especially where various ethnic group live
together in a society. The evolution of technological environment has been profoundly changing
cultural pattern in every society simultaneously. At the same time, at the crossway of fourth
industrial revolution, artificial intelligence (AI), one of the newest and refining technology is
occupying and taking over control of all other technical sectors gradually. The application of
artificial intelligence is longer restricted to tech and corporate sector now, it is also being used in
agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, education, astronomy, sports, defense,
professional service and not to say in our daily life-style. So, in other words the influence
artificial intelligence is successively changing the cultural pattern and going towards to transform
into a new culture in terms of social life. As, artificial intelligence is still emerging, it will not be
wise to jump into conclusion that whether this change of cultural pattern is progressive or
retrogressive for the society. There is a possibility that artificial intelligence will keep multi-
dynamic impact on various culture in near future.

Objective
The objective of this article is to review the impact of artificial intelligence on cultural diversity.

Literature Review
Artificial intelligence appears to be the latest and emerging frontier in science and technology
which attempts to imitate complex human tasks through learning, adapting and automation. As,
this technology is designed to operate by learning from human behavior, so it also affects society
and culture. Though, it is intensely influencing our society and culture, not many investigation
has been conduct related to artificial intelligence and cultural diversity.

Hagerty & Rubinov (2019) conducted a research showing that the social impact of artificial
intelligence is different in terms of geographical settings. Similarly, perception of artificial
intelligence is shaped in the context of local culture and society. Kulesz (2018) examined the

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effect of artificial intelligence on culture focusing on artist, public and creative industries in both
Global North and South. The study found that AI can increase the efficiency of cultural
industries and number of artworks and entitle more creators. But, there is still few entrepreneurs
and artists know to operate machine learning tools. The study also revealed that is risk of
inducing a dual divide creative, technological, that would result in cumulative decline of the
Global South as Global North is currently tech dominant. Zhang et al (2019) examined the role
of artificial intelligence in mitigating the biasness of diversity and inclusion in workplace. The
study suggested that, by applying the correct data and algorithm, adopting AI enabled framework
and employing expert industrial organizational (I-O) psychologists and data scientist to train up
AI, may detect the potential and unconscious biases and support the manager to make right and
fair decisions. Caramiaux (2020) examined the role and impact of artificial intelligence in the
cultural and creative sectors (CCS). The study revealed that, there is a strong possibility that
Artificial Intelligence can create simpler way for the users to navigate via cultural content. The
study also suggested that, openness of cultural content though good AI practices should be
legitimizing and shared across the European cultural web.

Understanding Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is an electronic deputationist which capable of performing task that require
human intelligence (Deowan, 2020). More precisely, it is an assembly of technologies that
authorize computers to think and take action for themselves i.e. to exercise what to do –
generally in the course of accomplishing any specific task. This is distinct from conventional
data processing and analytics that operate on static algorithms. Alternately, AI provides cognitive
ability to observe, learn, organize, conceptualize, and generate directions and reason. In terms of
marketing, AI provides computers cognitive smarts to transform into marketing automation as
well as smarter marketers. It assists markers to identify and execute marketing plans (Marsden,
2017).

The idea of artificial intelligence was existed since Greek philosophy (UKEssays, 2018). In
1950, Alan Turning made a revolutionary benchmark by presenting Turing Test method which
determines if a machine is intelligent. This test established the elemental goal and vision of AI
(Builtin, n.d.). It was suggested that, there will be six components to form an AI. Even after 70

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years from now, these six components still remain. These includes knowledge representation,
natural language processing, automated reasoning, computer vision, machine learning and
robotics (Bair, 2021).
Some popular common examples of AI in our daily life are disease prediction and mapping tools,
smart virtual assistance such as Alexa and Siri, personalized and optimized healthcare treatment
recommendations, manufacturing and drone robots, Robo-advisor for forex and stock trade,
conversational bots for customer service and marketing, hazardous and fake news detection tools
for Social media, spam filters on email, movies, TV shows or song recommendations from
Netflix and Spotify (Builtin, n.d.).

Understanding Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity refers to coexistence of various norms, arts, beliefs, knowledge, laws, morals,
religions, customs, languages, races, ethnicities, genders, nationalities, races, sexual orientation
etc. of human society (Lin, 2020).

Technology certainly affects culture. However, the result of the affect is not the same for every
cultural group or community. Each of them accept or reject it or imply it differently according to
their value, norm belief, landscape and other matters. Artificial intelligence might face the same
outcome.

AI Changing the Traditional Art and Culture

Microsoft, one of the biggest tech giant in the world, are working on changing culture,
preserving language, changing the concept of art by using Artificial Intelligence technology.
Recently, Microsoft AI has been applied to preserve the record of cultural heritage in digital 3D
model landmark from Combodia to Syira. Currently, Microsoft is working on preserving
imperiled languages in southwestern Mexico region by using AI. In 2019, a language algorithm
prototype was created by OpenAI, which can write text identical to human writing. In 2014, The
Los Angeles Times reported an article, using Quakebot algorithm, which generated article
automatically, just after the earthquake hit. These types development of AI are tended to yield
news almost without human intervention which could ease the burden of reporters and editorial

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staffs. In October 2018, a painting named “Portrait of Edmond de Belamy” which was painted by
an algorithm was sold for $432,500. The process was a number of images were inputted in the
computer, then the original portrait was produced by learning from those numerous images. This
trend could lead to a threat of replacing artist with machine. Currently, gaming industries are
using AI to write functional music which can change mood and tempo instantly with the change
of continuing gameplay (Thornton, 2019).

AI Changing the Organizational Culture

Mitigating Unconscious Bias
Unconscious bias denotes to individual bias which we are not acquainted with. It is the result of
our emotional reactions of events that affect our lives by making quick decision that may be
illogical to others (Cueller, 2017). In most cases, it influences the employee’s judgement in
handling and choosing the right employees. For instance, managers often prefer those candidates
who advocate their choices and happens to be the same background. Preferring those employees
who graduate from the same institute (Balham, 2020). By analyzing data and implementing
algorithm, AI can identify biases and notify managers. Hence, it can assist in recruiting qualified
candidates and making business decisions. Mya Systems provides recruit hiring chatbot which is
a conversational AI. It simplifies the hiring process for recruitment agencies and companies
such as Adecco, L’Oréal, Deloitte and Hays (Koidan, 2020).

Assuring Culture Fit in Workplace

Now with the help of AI, an organization can define its own culture of its workplace based on its
goals and values and also data collected from employees as they often struggle to define it. Using
Al tools such as Culture Amp and 15Five points out HR managers current trending sentiment of
employees. Defining its own culture, an organization can use Al to hire those candidates who are
fit to their culture code. Only academic grade and technical skills are enough to choose the right
candidate. Ability to work as a team, adoption ability with the workplace is also essential which
also can be identified and analyzed by Al tools (BasuMallick, 2019).

Going beyond Conventional Culture

As AI continues to assist various organizational tasks, there will be a revolutionary
transformation in organizational culture. Some significant changes we are already witnessing

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such as, bots and automated tasks, remote workers and freelancers are managed by AI,
employees and managers are focusing in creative problem solving, forming business value
through innovative application (BasuMallick, 2019).

Al and Local Culture

Artificial intelligence can be shaped in different way in distinct places (Appadurai, 1990). When
a brand new idea or technology enters to a local culture, it changes everyone and everything by
encounter (Hagerty, 2018). Here are some examples which illustrates, implementing AI
technology in the context of cultural landscape:
 Though Brazil is a big economy, its corruption and crime rate is still high. So, the country is
using “Roise” an AI technology that can identify unfamiliar payment pattern of politician to
decrease corruption (Samir, 2018). In Rio, to monitor shooting, middle class travelers check
app before leaving the home (Travis, 2019). In the subway of Sao Paulo, a company has
setup facial recognition technology to detect passenger’s emotional reaction to advertisement
(Amigo, 2018).
 India is one of the most tuberculosis infected country of the world. A renowned hospital in
Delhi achieved success by implements AI on screen digital X-rays (Arinrajit, Majumdar,
2018). Delhi police of India have started implying predictive patrolling method that can
locate probable crime place by analyzing images from satellite and clustering algorithms
(Arindrajit, Hickok, 2018).

Limitations
There have a number of empirical studies conducted on AI. However, few empirical analyses on
AI’s relation with various cultures was found. So, lake of data was the biggest obstacle for
conducting this study.

Conclusion
In this review of the impact of Artificial Intelligence on various society illustrates that it has
changed many parts of cultural patterns of the societies and the process is still continuing. In

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some cases, there have been a common change due to AI intervention. Such as, changes in
organizational culture. On the other hand, some changes various society to society, culture to
culture. The thing is, as this technology is generally designed to do the tasks what human usually
do in their daily-life, there might be a possibility it could take place of human in many positions.
So, the question rises, whether AI is keeping positive or negative impact in the society? The
answer of this question is difficult to predict since Artificial Intelligence is considered an
emerging and advanced cutting age technology and cultural, political, economic and other factors
matters. As, Global North is the creator of AI has been researching and implementing this
technology for a long time, some significant changes in their society have been identified. On the
other side, Global South or say Third World still fully implemented with this technology. So, we
have to wait and observe how it will influence the societies of those parts of the world. Yet,
further empirical analyses are required to understand the influence of artificial intelligence on
various culture.

References
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https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/news/bangladesh-the-age-artificial-intelligence-
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