The invisible people behind tech gadgets

By Anonymous
By Caleb Newman

Apple is known for their reliable software and products. In the photo above, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi is introducing new software features for Apple devices at the WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June 2020. Federighi talked about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will help power the latest iPhones and iMacs to insane performances. Apple’s AI and the photo above are both elusive. While there are several computers in the background, one of them featuring code, and fancy words being said, such as neural networks and machine learning, it is all a facade. 

In reality, most of the development of Apple’s products are made overseas as shown in the diagram above. Consumers need to realize the global impact of using an iPhone or iMac. In a recent paper, Hammer and Park explain that tech companies, Apple included, deceive consumers to make them believe that AI will power their devices rather than human labor (2021:235). Their main observation is that tech companies have renewed colonialism; developed countries are exploiting other country’s workforce by paying them low wages in exchange for the parts they produce for the latest gadgets.

Tech companies are creating a status similar to that of the US in the 19th century Hammer and Park say. Similar to how white people viewed black people as inferior then, consumers in the US view the tech supplier country’s workforce as less than them. In the US, slavery resulted in there being racial hierachries to justify the discrimination against black people. Hammer and Park conclude that there is still discrimination being done today in the form of neocolonialism and that more analysis is need (2021:242). It should start with tech companies being more transparent about what goes into making their products.



Sources

Apple Insider. 2020. “Craig Federighi” From appleinsider. Retrieved May 6, 2022

(https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/07/02/developers-reveal-the-good-and-bad-of-wwdc-
 2020-going-online). 

Hammer, Ricarda and Tina M. Park. 2021. “The Ghost In The Algorithm: Racial Colonial
Capitalism And The Digital Age.” Global History of Race and Racism Political Power
and Social Theory 38: 221-249.

S&P Global. 2017. “Apple’s global supply chain” Retrieved May 6, 2022 

(https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/dlsffpcplia1yurf

9zliaa2). 


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