Call to reimagine artificial intelligence for developing world | Technology and new media - Times Higher Education

Higher education institutions who are developing AI have a responsibility to ensure that it is not biased against developing nations, conference hears, says Anna McKie, reporter covering teaching, learning and student issues, as well as higher education in Africa and the Middle East

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Universities must lead efforts to ensure that the evolution of artificial intelligence tools does not discriminate against developing nations, a conference has heard.
Speaking on a panel at Times Higher Education’s Emerging Economies Summit, Sarah Anyang Agbor, commissioner for human resources, science and technology at the African Union, said that the need for global diversity had been overlooked in the development of machine learning technology.

“It is defined by the perspective of the West…the language of the machine is not the language of Africa,” she told the event at Qatar University. “Who is designing the machines that will dictate the future of all of us and do they come from a position of bias?”
Professor Anyang Agbor, who was previously a deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Bamenda, in Cameroon, said that universities must play a key role in correcting the omission of perspectives from the developing world...

Mikhail Strikhanov, rector of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI in Russia, added that “society should not let [AI] develop without a plan”. Universities must work with policymakers to create new ethical frameworks, he added.
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Source: Times Higher Education (THE)