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Doha, Qatar – At the world’s largest technology conferences, whether on the main stage, on its side panels, or in dozens of gorgeous, towering company booths, the words on everyone’s lips are “artificial intelligence” (AI). ) was one.
Entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders from around the world were all talking about the capabilities of AI at the Middle East’s first ever Web Summit in Doha, which concluded on Thursday.
But that excitement has also raised concerns among experts that these technologies could exacerbate the inequalities that divide the world.
Ayo Tometi, co-founder of the US-based anti-racism movement Black Lives Matter, said technology, including AI, risks amplifying already existing biases.
“We are literally seeing bias being programmed into the technology that is being deployed in our communities. And these biases must be addressed,” Tometi said at the summit. .
Social justice leaders shared examples of predictive policing tools that are particularly harmful to people of color in the United States, especially Black people, she said.
According to a report in MIT Technology Review, there are two main types of tools currently in use in the United States.
The first is a tool that uses location-based algorithms to predict where crimes are likely to occur. The second is a tool that uses data about people, such as age and gender, to predict who is likely to commit a crime.
According to a study by accounting giant Deloitte, smart technologies such as AI could help reduce crime in cities by 30-40%.
But Tometi said these technologies are “a really serious concern because they still don’t address racism and anti-back racism within the criminal justice system.”
When these technologies are provided, they are assumed to be neutral, but that is not actually the case, she said.
“[We’ve] We are currently seeing cases where people are being locked up due to flaws in facial scans. They just don’t see our faces the same way, they don’t recognize our features,” Tometi pressed.
“There is so much stereotypical bias and discrimination that is being normalized by these technologies.”
AI and the digital divide
In addition to amplifying existing biases, another concern experts share about AI technology is that it could exacerbate the global digital divide.
Countries “need to accelerate the development of AI” [by] We are producers, not consumers,” Alaa Abdulal of the Saudi-based Digital Cooperation Agency said at the summit.
Abdulal added that creating upskilling opportunities can reduce this disparity, but governments cannot tackle this alone. Civil society organizations should intervene.
Jihad Tayara, CEO of UAE-based company Evoteq, said the race for AI supremacy on the world stage depends on the availability of capital, but the global He presented the opposite perspective, stating that the digital divide is shrinking due to the consumption of AI.
“Most countries now have better access to connectivity,” Tayara said at the summit, with cloud computing and storage services becoming cheaper and data more widely available. he added.
However, the CEO acknowledged that some countries are still far behind when it comes to AI production.
Tayara and his team said a recent visit to sub-Saharan Africa helped them understand that the region doesn’t yet have the infrastructure to replicate the company’s “advanced” AI analytics in the pharmaceutical industry. .
Still, Frank Long, a vice president at U.S. investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, says more countries around the world are embracing the potential of AI today than when mobile technology first blossomed or the internet itself was born. He says he is much more obsessed with it.
“To some extent, [it’s] Because it has a huge economic effect, [AI] There was potential, but it was with direct geopolitical applications,” Long said at the Web Summit.
Long also argued that the race to develop AI technology will be multi-layered, adding that “dynamic efforts” are being launched around the world.
“Whether it’s this person or that person, this country or that country, it’s not going to be a simple horse race,” he said. “It will be a full stack with participants and competition at each layer of the stack.”
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